An Eva's Hand and a Dragon's Claw
by dragon's death
Summary: Beyond humans, beyond Evas, beyond Angels, there is a greater universe out there. A man from that greater universe wants to bring humanity into it. And he needs Shinji's help to do it. Rated M for graphic violence, language, sexual references, and whatnot
1. Prologue

This is not the first chapter of the story, rather, consider it a sort of prologue. A very few of you may remember this story back when it was called "Dragongelion". School and other things in my life more or less forced me to stop writing for a long time, but recently things have calmed down enough for me to want to try taking up the pencil again, and I decided to take one more shot at this bastard, once again starting from scratch. In order to understand a lot of the non-Eva side of the story though, there are things you all need to know and would be difficult to integrate with the actual story. This'll probably be pretty dry stuff, but I ask you to please bear with me.

Here's how this'll work (Warning, _**Exposition Heavy, Spoiler Heavy**_): This story functions as a crossover with the Eva universe and an original universe containing the Slinn-Klyyd Empire, originally consisting of four sentient species from the planet Slinn-Klyyd, a massive, subterranean tunneling species called Corocanji; large, eel-like beings known as Sahjhenka; a small, avian-reptile species called Arejiko; and the cousins to the Arejiko, the dominant species in the Empire, and the most plot relevant, the Slyyn-Yii.

Slyyn-Yii are, basically, space dragons. Artificial, they were genetically modified from the Arejiko and enhanced with every physical and mental capability that could be thought of to create the ultimate fighter. The name Slyyn-Yii means "Image of God", as they were patterned after the Dragon's God, Yiisea. Somewhat larger than an adult human, they are dark green with light green undersides, and tails that typically run three times the length of their bodies. They have huge, deep red wings, which are their third pair of limbs, they do have arms and legs. Their basic body shape is akin to a raptor, ala Jurassic Park. They have three fingers and one thumb on each hand, and three toes on each foot, all tipped by large claws. They have blade-like spines from the bottom of their necks to their tails, and are capable of retracting and extending them at will. They are, of course, capable of breathing fire, in addition, they have venomous fangs that can deliver a very potent neurotoxin. They have incredible regenerative capabilities. Their most prominent characteristic, though, is that they are all psychic.

The Arejiko are the primary genetic template for the Slyyn-Yii. They are smaller though, and lack arms. Also lacking their cousins' spines, they do share their fire-breathing abilities and venom. Approximately 40 percent of the population is psychic.

Sahjhenka are, naturally, aquatic. About forty feet long, they are a bright orange color. Unusually for fish, they have fully evolved arms and hands, tipped with claws. Approximately 55 percent of the population is psychic.

Corocanji are about the size of an elephant and are brown. Quadrupedal, they spend most of their time underground. They have massive digging claws on their front legs/arms with opposable thumbs, small vestigial horns and a stubby tail. Approximately 65 percent of the population is psychic.

The Slinn-Klyyd Dragon Empire spans a large portion of the galaxy, and includes a great number of client species. Earth is within Slinn-Klyyd space, but humans are not a client species. The title of Emperor is currently shared by identical twin Slyyn-Yii brothers, hatched from the same egg. Collectively or individually, these four species may be referred to as dragons.

What follows is a timeline of this crossover universe, detailing significant events from both Eva and Dragon continuities. Certain things, like opinions developing, take place over time, and the dates they are attributed to are when they first start to form these opinions. Unless specifically dated, these are approximations. Here we go!

15 billion years ago: The universe is born.

4 billion years ago: The First Ancestral Race seeds the galaxy with Black and White Eggs. Planets with White Eggs are eventually populated by massive beings referred to by humans as Angels. Planets with Black Eggs are eventually populated with small, highly numerous beings. All beings born from this process possess a unique "AT-Field". No planet is seeded with both. Earth is seeded with a White Egg. Slinn-Klyyd is not seeded and life develops naturally. In modern times, all planets seeded with Black Eggs are permanently quarantined; nothing gets in, nothing gets out.

65 million years ago: A drifting Black Egg collides with Earth in what will one day be known as Japan, causing First Impact. The Prime Angel, later called Adam, is reduced to a dormant state in Antarctica. Humanity is seeded.

4500 years ago: The Slyyn-Yii are artificially created by the other Dragons as ultimate soldiers. After approximately 300 years of servitude, they rebel and take over. Eventually, a treaty is reached by all four races and their sights turn skyward.

4000 years ago: The Dragon Empire is forged and begins expansion through both warfare and diplomacy. Colonies are founded by either adopting empty "Garden Worlds", or sterilizing populated Garden Worlds, if the population has not attained space flight. A Warrior class, exclusive to Slyyn-Yii, is created as the absolute height of Draconic martial ability, each capable of enacting sterilization individually, and the strongest of these is known as the God of Warriors.

1538 AD: Riiskare, Kanstath, and Yasdek are born as the sons of Creestouth, a Slyyn-Yii. Kanstath and Yasdek are twins. Riiskare acquires a large wound across his right eye from an egg shard. As hatchlings are unable to regenerate yet, the eye must be replaced with a bionic replacement, while the rest of the wound is allowed to scar. This is considered a sign of strength amongst Dragons: surviving Hatch Wounds.

1539 AD: Riiskare is identified as having the potential to be a Warrior.

1546 AD: Riiskare shows what is eventually recognized as an evolving ability of the Slyyn-Yii, Energy Manipulation. Birth records later indicate that he was the first one to hatch that possessed this ability.

1563 AD: Riiskare is officially inducted into Warrior training.

1565 AD: Screege is born as the daughter of Jotaliik.

1583 AD: Kanstath and Yasdek enter into the mandatory military training for Slyyn-Yii of 15 Years (45 Earth years) of age. Riiskare, undergoing Warrior training, is exempt.

1610 AD: Screege enters mandatory military training.

1628 AD: Riiskare completes Warrior training. At 30 Years of age, he and his clutch-brothers are legally adults. Riiskare becomes an official Warrior. Kanstath and Yasdek enter politics.

1655 AD: Screege is legally an adult and becomes a xenobiologist.

1732 AD: Screege and Riiskare meet on a Colony World and begin seeing each other.

1738 AD: Screege and Riiskare become Mates.

1751 AD: Riiskare challenges and kills the current God of Warriors, inheriting the title.

1778 AD: Kanstath and Yasdek become Twin Emperors, and are the youngest to attain Rulership of the Empire.

1784 AD: The Kyrodians, a race of multicolored bird-people, are offended by the Slinn-Klyyd colonization methods and declare war, targeting their colonies, and so forcing ground campaigns. Using surprising technologies and tactics, they make unprecedented headway against the far more physically adept Dragons.

1790 AD: After many planets are both won and lost, Riiskare is dispatched to the heavily contested world of Hyalf. Screege volunteers to join the campaign as she had been throughout the war. The planet is won for the Dragons, but Screege suffers what is thought to be a fatal wound. Enraged, Riiskare personally obliterates the retreating Kyrodian fleet. He then rushes to Kyrodia, and, displaying a level of power unseen before or since, directs a massive blast of energy straight to the core of the planet and cracks it apart. There are no survivors. It is only later that he discovers that Screege will recover, barely. As God of Warriors and clutch-brother of the Twin Emperors, Riiskare is not punished for destroying a Garden World, which is the only charge that would have been leveled against him.

1806 AD: The star of Slinn-Klyyd unexpectedly goes supernova. The majority of the population is evacuated, but a new center of government must be decided. For reasons to be detailed within the story, the Twin Emperors choose Earth, and do NOT have it sterilized, instead burrowing beneath mountain ranges and keeping humans unaware of their presence. Primarily government officials and their families relocate there, though others do so as well. Riiskare and Screege are among these. Most evacuees go to various Colony Worlds.

March 23, 1905 AD: Nichos Ramaiden is born in England.

January 4, 1906 AD: Craven (Doesn't know his last name) is born in England.

1908 AD: The Ramaidens travel to the newly established Commonwealth of Australia. Craven's family is on the same boat. A few miles offshore, a violent storm sinks the ship. A Mated pair of Slyyn-Yii happen upon the wreckage and find Nichos and Craven still alive. Finding no other survivors, they decide to take the children back home with them. They petition to have the boys accepted as citizens of the Empire and adopt them officially.

1909 AD: The decision is made to have Nichos and Craven Hybridized. A common practice in the Empire, a non-Dragon citizen is genetically enhanced with DNA from a sponsor Slyyn-Yii, in order to bring them up to physical par with the Slyyn-Yii's immense strength and grant psychic abilities. Depending on the species, the Hybrid can come very close, but matching it is almost always either impossible, or manifests noticeable Draconic phenotypes. During the process, it is discovered that humans are capable of being Hybridized to the point that they can match a Slyyn-Yii's physical capability with the only side-effect phenotypes manifesting being pointed ears and slitted pupils. The full abilities granted to Nichos and Craven are as follows:

Superhuman Strength, Speed, and Reflexes. Extreme coordination and agility. Organic redundancy matches that of a Slyyn-Yii. Perceptions are capable of being accelerated to a kind of "Bullet Time" at will. Claws can be extended and retracted from finger and toenails, based on the spines of a Slyyn-Yii. Extended canine teeth, exceedingly sharp but lacking in venom. Physical durability and stamina, all five senses are enhanced, and the full measure of psychic abilities are granted. Speed of aging and longevity are predicted to match that of a Slyyn-Yii. Most noteworthy, however, is that each human appears to manifest a unique psychic based power: Nichos develops the ability to manipulate matter with his mind, Telekinesis. His body emits an imperceptible energy field that is controlled by his thoughts, and this energy field can interact with matter independently from his body. Even more unusually, he appears to be able to use the field as a sensory organ, perceiving everything within its boundaries. This field grows in size as Nichos ages Craven, on the other hand, can Eclipse himself from other's perceptions, essentially becoming invisible, inaudible, and incapable of being felt or smelled at will. He can only be sensed by psychics and Nichos's new power. Both boys spend a year in a medically induced coma as their bodies are reconstructed according to the new genetic information.

1910 AD: Nichos and Craven awaken as Hybrids. They are raised as brothers by the pair that found them. Screege begins research on the two, helping each recognize and develop their new abilities. Throughout their lives they are entered into various human societies with fake names and the express knowledge not to reveal their origins. Nichos, observing the ridiculous speed that humans develop their technology and unstoppable survival instinct that they exhibit, eventually forms the opinion that humans and Dragons should enter into an open alliance. Craven, on the other hand, starts showing dissatisfaction with the dragons, and begins to indicate that they should leave Earth.

1913 AD: Nichos is identified as being capable of becoming a Warrior, the only non Slyyn-Yii to do so.

August 17, 1918 AD: Iris Daileth is born in America.

1922 AD: Nichos is officially inducted into Warrior training. With a cunning tactical mind and novel use of his Telekinesis, he quickly excels. Meets Riiskare for the first time

1928 AD: During one of their sojourns into human society, the boys meet Iris and become fast friends.

1929 AD: Iris's family is killed by criminals. Nichos and Craven convince their parents to take her into the secret of the Dragons. Iris is adopted by another family and agrees to undergo Hybridization.

1930 AD: Iris awakens as a Hybrid. Furthering the theory that each human Hybrid has a unique psychic power, Iris exhibits the ability to completely Dominate someone's will if she makes eye contact. While lesser abilities exist in many psychics, Domination offers absolutely no chance at resistance. If one is unaware of her ability, they never even notice any difference.

1944 AD: Craven and Iris enter mandatory military training. After completion, Craven begins Assassin training. Iris begins Mentalist training.

1966 AD: Nichos and Craven begin competing for Iris's affections. Iris eventually chooses Nichos.

April 29, 1967 AD: Rokubungi Gendo is born in Japan.

March 30, 1977 AD: Ikari Yui is born in Japan.

1985 AD: Kaji Ryoji and Akagi Ritsuko are born in Japan, June 17 and November 21 respectively.

December 8, 1986 AD: Katsuragi Misato is born in Japan.

1988 AD: Nichos completes Warrior training and becomes a legal adult. As a Warrior, Nichos is recognized as one of the strongest. In addition to his duties as a Warrior, he begins lobbying for the revelation of Dragons on Earth. The Twin Emperors refuse.

1989 AD: Craven and Iris become legal adults. Nichos and Iris become Mates. Craven disappears.

July 11, 1991 AD: Ibuki Maya is born in Japan.

1999 AD: Gendo and Yui marry. Gendo takes her name.

2000 AD: Ikari Shinji is conceived. Second Impact occurs as a result of a "Contact Experiment" with the recently uncovered Adam by the Katsuragi Expedition. Misato is the only one to survive Ground Zero, with critical injuries. During one of the tremors incurred by the massive release of energy, Screege is killed. Adam is reduced to an embryonic state.

After the initial catastrophe dies down, Nichos approaches a mourning Riiskare with the proposition to start an organization with the express purpose of revealing Draconic presence on Earth, convincing him with the argument that if Dragons and humans interacted, Second Impact could have been prevented. Riiskare joins.

A refugee incident sparks a war between India and Pakistan. This leads to war between many different countries. The original Tokyo is destroyed by nuclear weaponry.

After gathering as many like-minded individuals as he could, Nichos approaches the Twin Emperors, stating his intention to reveal the secret. They declare all of them traitors and order them executed. Nichos and his followers fight their way out and go into hiding. Nichos determines that even if they had agreed, merging human and Dragon societies wouldn't be as easy as he had thought. He would have to give more thought to the human side of the equation. First things first, he had to make sure that humanity survived the next few decades.

2001 AD: The Valentine Treaty is signed, ending the Second Impact Wars. The U.N. is retooled into a unified governing superpower. Ikari Shinji is born in Japan, June 6. Sohryu Asuka Langely is born in Germany, December 4. Nichos begins secretly acquiring human allies, and starts gathering information on Second Impact. He uncovers the existence of Project E and the Human Intrumentality Project.

2002 AD: Misato is recovered from Ground Zero, rendered mute by trauma.

2003 AD: Gehirn begins constructing Evangelions. War breaks out between China and Vietnam, the JSSDF is formed in response.

2004 AD: Ikari Yui brings Shinji to the first activation of Evangelion Test Type Unit 01. Shinji witnesses his mother's disappearance into the Evangelion. Made aware that Gendo plans to eventually have Shinji brought back to pilot the Eva, Nichos intervenes. Using her Domination ability, Iris has Gendo turn custody of Shinji over to her and Nichos. They raise Shinji as their own, and he grows up as though a citizen of the Empire(albeit a renegade citizen), recognizing Dragons as people and fully aware of his destiny as an Eva pilot. Additionally, Shinji is trained in combat and helped to unlock the latent psychic abilities that all potential Eva pilots possess(not what allows them to pilot, Nichos, Iris, and Craven are as unable to pilot as anyone born before Impact. The psychic abilities can be considered symptomatic of what enables piloting capability). He does not receive the more arduous Warrior training, but is personally trained by Riiskare. He is still an introverted person, but has lived an altogether more emotionally supportive life and is generally more relaxed. Finally, he actually enjoys conflict, a product of being raised around Dragons, who make it a point to enjoy conflicts(ranging from simple disagreements to all out brawls, typically non-fatal, but even that can be fun to them).

Ayanami Rei I is created. She is designated the First Child.

2005 AD: Sohryu Kyoko Zeppelin activates Evangelion Production Model Unit 02. She is driven insane in the attempt. Her daughter Asuka is later selected as the Second Child. Kyoko commits suicide. Construction begins on Tokyo-3 over the Black Egg, referred to by humans as a Geofront. Misato, having since recovered her speaking ability, meets Akagi Ritsuko and Kaji Ryoji in college. Misato and Ryoji begin dating, eventually moving in together.

2007 AD: Misato and Ryoji break up.

2008 AD: Construction begins on the MAGI Supercomputer Series. Ritsuko graduates and joins her mother, Akagi Naoko, in work on the MAGI.

2009 AD: Ryoji and Misato join Gehirn, Ryoji in Japan, and Misato in Germany. Misato becomes Asuka's guardian.

2010 AD: Ayanami Rei I is first introduced to the public. Construction on the MAGI is completed. Naoko strangles Rei, and commits suicide shortly thereafter. Ayanami Rei II is created. Gehirn is disbanded and replaced by Nerv.

2012 AD: Eight years after Yui's "death", Shinji and Gendo meet at her grave for the first time since he turned over custody to the Ramaidens. They have a brief, somewhat less than civil conversation, and go their separate ways.

2013 AD: Shortly before Ibuki Maya graduates college, Nichos contacts her and, after an extended conversation, she joins his organization. Maya graduates and is hired by Nerv. Nichos introduces her to Shinji, explaining that he will eventually be the Third Child.

2015 AD: Misato transfers to Nerv-Japan in Tokyo-3. Rei is injured in an activation test with Evangelion Prototype Unit 00. In anticipation of the Third Angel's attack, Gendo sends for Shinji...

WHAT ALL THIS MEANS

Shinji has been raised with the knowledge, either intimate or cursory awareness, of everything detailed above, and is in full support of Nichos's goal. Being aware of both Seele's and Gendo's plans, this obviously means that they will have to be dealt with, so that humanity might actually survive to eventually ally with the Dragons. Shinji's training, I feel the need to point out, has _not_ made him into a super-competent, Ranma 1/2-esque death machine. He remains entirely human, and is bound by human limitations, and the fact that he is _fourteen years old_. The psychic training does mean that he will start off with a somewhat higher sync ratio, say, 52% or something, but as stated above, psychic abilities≠piloting skills. The strongest skill that Nichos teaches Shinji is tactical thinking, and his greatest weapon is knowledge. In addition to being charged with killing Angels, both he and Maya are to subtly sabotage the "Scenarios" and bring the other pilots around to becoming potential allies. Riiskare, having something like a godfatherly relationship with Shinji, is to serve as an unseen bodyguard.

Nichos and Iris will work behind the scenes for the most part, and the majority of their characterization will come from flashbacks to Shinji's childhood. They will eventually show up in Tokyo-3, though. The main reason that they and Riiskare must rely on Shinji and the Evas, is the same one as for the rest of the world: The Evas are the only weapons that can combat the Angels. The Empire does have weapons that can overpower an AT-Field, but as they are all renegades, they cannot access them.

And I think that's everything. Thank you for making it this far, please continue to the first chapter, which should be much more enjoyable. If you have any questions, please feel free to include them, and I will do my best to answer them. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 1

Alright, first chapter! Thank you for enduring the host of rather dry background info, I know it can't have been easy. Nevertheless, it _is_ important and a lot of it would have been awkward to put in the actual story, so I thank you once again and hope you enjoy.

**An Eva's Hand, and a Dragon's Claw**

The Beginning

With sunlight shining directly into his eyes (on purpose, he was sure of it) there wasn't much Shinji could do but roll out of bed. Glaring vaguely at the window, he quickly went through his morning stretches before heading out into the kitchen where his mother was making breakfast.

"Morning, Shinji," she said, throwing him a smile.

"Morning, Mom," he replied. "Where's Dad?"

"He's practicing on the roof, she said, nodding her head towards the ceiling. "He'll probably be down in half an hour."

"You know, we live in an apartment," he noted, walking next to her to see what she was making, which turned out to be eggs. "Does it ever occur to him that someone else might go up there? Anything I can help with, by the way?"

"He'd know if anyone was coming up before they got there, you know that," she scolded, smacking him lightly on the head. "And no, I think I have things covered here. Would you mind checking the mail, though? I heard it come earlier."

"Sure." He snagged the key to the mailbox and went outside. After getting them, he quickly started sifting through the letters. "Let's see, rent, credit card offer, letter from Ridley, letter from -hgk!" Tokyo-3? Did that mean...?

"A-yup!" Startled, Shinji looked up to see his father hanging from the ledge of the next story up, and swing onto the floor next to him, an amused look on his face. "I caught that all the way from the roof, kid. What's the trouble?" In response, Shinji turned the envelope so he could see it. His expression quickly turned serious. "...I see. Well," he said with a sigh. "We knew this was gonna happen. Come on, let's go inside and open it."

When they got inside, his mother was already at the door, looking apprehensive. "It's here, then?" she asked, obviously having heard them.

"It seems so," his father answered. He gestured towards the dining table. "Let's sit down." Once they were at the table, he nodded towards Shinji. "Go ahead, kid."

Shinji nodded, and opened the letter. ".........Come." They stared at him for a moment, then his father smacked his head into the table and his mother put her head into her palm. It was Gendo, it couldn't be that much of a shock. The man was a complete stone bastard.

"Why am I not surprised?" his father's voice came from the table. "I want to be surprised. Great Yiisea, can I please be surprised?" He finally lifted his head with a sigh. "Dammit. Is that really it?"

"Um..." Shinji looked back through the envelope and found other things. "No, actually. There's also... directions on how to get there, an I.D. Card and...a photo of a woman insisting I look at her chest." His father promptly burst out laughing while his mother plucked the picture out of his hands. She frowned at it.

"Look at this, Nichos," she said, showing the picture to him. "A complete stranger has more words for him than his own Father." Getting a hold of himself, he took the picture.

"Hmm, that'd be Katsuragi Misato," he said. "She moved to Tokyo-3 not too long ago, got promoted to Captain too. Maya tells me she's a good person, but a little... excessive in personality." He started laughing again, tossing the picture to the table. "Nobody told me she was into teenage boys, though."

"So, should I start packing?" Shinji asked, knowing that wasn't a topic he liked.

"Are you sure you ready for this?" his mother asked in turn. "No matter how much training we've given you, it's still not the same as real combat."

"Yeah, I know," Shinji admitted. "Still, if not me than who?" His father sighed.

"All too true," he said, standing up. "It's funny. Knowing that this was going to happen was the exact reason I adopted you, and now I would do almost anything to keep you from having to do this. Come on, I'll help you pack." He put his arm around Shinji's shoulders and started guiding him to his room. "Iris?" She nodded.

"I'll arrange it," she said, before heading to the phone.

"So," his father said, once they got to his room. "Do you want to take a regular suitcase, or do you maybe wanna cheat a little?" He leaned against the wall and nodded towards the closet. "I mean, you'll probably be living on your own, so it's not like anyone'll notice if you have more stuff than one suitcase could hold..."

"I think I'll just send for my stuff, Dad," Shinji said dryly. "So what do you think, clothes, bathroom essentials, that sort of thing?"

"All right, all right," his father responded, rolling his eyes. "And yeah, if you insist on doing things the boring way, that sounds good. You might wanna bring a couple of magazines too, though. It _is_ gonna be a good few hours flight."

"Wait, what?" Shinji frowned at him. "'A good few hours'? What does that mean? Aren't you going to-"

"'Fraid we can't, kiddo," his father interrupted. "Once you get back to Japan, all eyes are gonna be on you. There needs to be an official record of you arriving. That's what your mother's doing, arranging your flight."

"If that's the case," Shinji said with a sigh. "We should get moving."

"Right," his father agreed. He waved his hands, and both the closet and bedroom door swung open. With another sweep of his hands, a suitcase, clothes and toothpaste and shampoo and the like all flew into the room to hover over Shinji's bed. The suitcase popped open, the clothes folded, and everything flew into it. The suitcase closed with a snap and dropped onto the bed. He gave his long ponytail a dramatic flick.

"Show off," Shinji commented. His only response was a grin.

**ED**

Airports, Shinji had long ago concluded, sucked. Overcrowded, no one knew what the hell they were doing, it was a tribute to human idiocy. That was why he was quite grateful for his and his parent's psychic abilities. Very helpful in a) keeping a nice, wide berth around the three of them, and b) being able to pull whatever information was needed directly from relevant brains. Suitcase in hand, he turned to face them at the gate.

"I just want you to know, Shinji," his mother said with a small smile on her face. "We're very proud of you."

"Indeed. You're very brave, my boy," his father agreed. "Your courage rivals that of any Warrior. Now, Options?"

"Disarm, Disable, or Destroy," Shinji recited faithfully, knowing he meant the Angels.

"Possibilities?" his father continued, the Tenets of Combat were something he had drilled into Shinji at a young age.

"Destroy," he answered. The Angels could be given no mercy, their only goal the complete destruction of humanity.

"Good," his father said, looking satisfied with his responses. "Now, I want you to take this..." He pulled out his wallet and gave Shinji a card. "There's fifteen million yen in that account. If Nerv even bothers to pay you, it'll probably be put into a trust fund, so here. Try not to spend it all."

"Umm, thanks," Shinji said, caught off guard. He took the card and put it in his pocket. "Do you really think I'll need that much money?"

"I hope not, but you never know," his father responded glibly. "Everything costs money these days."

"Now, Shinji," his mother said, looking very serious. "You be good, all right? I want you to brush your teeth, keep your grades up, and I expect you to have a sizable kill count the next time we see you." Shinji couldn't help but laugh, she had always been able to give such a deadpan delivery.

"All right, I promise," he said in a deliberately petulant voice. They all smiled.

"One more thing," his father said. "I've assigned Riiskare to be your bodyguard. He'll be following you to Tokyo-3."

"The God of Warriors, mortal incarnation of divine martial prowess, is going to be my babysitter?" Shinji loved Riiskare and would be happy to have him, but...

"Hasn't he always been?" his father responded with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, not officially," he shot back. "Isn't there, I don't know something more important he could be doing?"

"You're our son, Shinji," his mother said, her eyes looking a little watery. "Maybe not by blood, but we love you all the same. Do you really think we'd leave your safety in the hands of anyone but the best? The thought of you fighting colossal, nigh-invincible monsters terrifies me enough as it is..." Unable to resist, Shinji hugged her.

"I'm going to be okay, Mom," he whispered. "This is what all my training has been for, right?" She didn't say anything and just held him tightly. After about a minute, they let go. He felt a hand settle on his shoulder, and saw his father smiling at him.

"I have complete and utter faith in you, Shinji," he said simply. "Now, once you get off the plane, head for this train station..." He gave Shinji a train ticket. "And it'll take you to Tokyo-3. Katsuragi will pick you up at the station there." He put his fist over his heart. "May you carry the blessings of the Great God Yiisea, my son."

"Flight-23, Los Angeles-2 to Tokyo-2, final boarding call now," the PA sounded.

"Our hearts go with you, now and always," his mother followed. "Be safe."

"Thank you, guys," Shinji said quietly, feeling like his heart was in his throat. With that, he turned and headed for the plane.

**ED**

Shinji would be fine, Nichos thought confidently. The boy had a natural aptitude for fighting that rivaled his and Riiskare's. He regretted that having him Hybridized was impossible for any number of reasons, he could have been a peerless Warrior. He turned to his wife.

"I think I saw a restaurant, you wanna get some lunch?" he asked her. She nodded. As they went to the restaurant, a McDonald's, as it turned out, he contacted Riiskare. [The plane has left, start following it.]

[Of course,] came the response. [I shall watch over him as though he were my own hatchling.]

[I just want to thank you for this again, Riiskare,] Iris chimed in sweetly.

[It is no trouble, Iris,] he said. [I-]

[I just want you to know that if something happens to my Shinji and I find out that you could have stopped it, I _will_ make you suffer,] she continued, not changing her tone in the slightest. There was proverbial silence, as they took a moment to shiver a little. She was just so _good_ at that.

[...At any rate,] Nichos started, eventually. [I'm sure everything will be fine. Tokyo-3 will, ironically, be the safest place in the world for him. Outside the Eva, at least. It isn't like they don't know how important he is. Besides looking out for him and the others, I want you to keep up with his training. He is _not_ allowed to slack off just because he's fighting for the survival of the human race.]

[Naturally,] Riiskare responded, amused. [I do not doubt that I will be able to find some way of subverting the attention of his more human guardians.]

[Kickin'.]

"Nichos," Iris nudged him.

"Hmm?" Oh, was it time to order?

**ED**

The only thing that kept Shinji from being extraordinarily annoyed by now was the crossword in one of the magazines he had brought (he would have to remember to thank his father for the suggestion later). He knew Katsuragi was new to the city herself, but that was no excuse for being two hours late! This was the era of GPS! What the hell?!

[Perhaps you should start moving on your own, Shinji,] Riiskare told him from somewhere in the sky. [The Angel approaches fast, and your mother would likely force my suicide if I allowed you to come to harm.]

[I would,] he responded. [But if I leave and start wandering around the city, she'll be even less likely to find me.]

[Nevertheless,] Riiskare said, starting to sound a little agitated. [I think it best that you leave. Now.]

[Oh, fine, you big lizard,] he snapped, standing up and putting the magazine away. Suddenly, he felt a twinge on the edges of his psychic senses, and looked down the street. Standing in the middle of the road was a young girl in a school uniform. Blue hair, red eyes, extremely pale skin, was she an albino? What was she doing-

[SHINJI! MOVE!] Out of nowhere, two missiles shot past him. Shielding himself from the backdraft, he looked back to where the girl had been, but she had vanished. A U.N. VTOL flew down the street, and as he followed its flight path, he saw something, very, very, _very_ large approaching.

"Hoh, crap!" he yelled, completely caught off-guard. How had something that big sneaked up on him like that?! He heard a car coming towards him, and turned just in time to see a blue sports car screech to a halt next to him. The passenger door popped open, and before the driver had a chance to even say anything, he dove in and slammed it shut. "Drive!" To her credit, the driver immediately took off, the car speeding away from the colossal monster.

"You're Shinji, right?" she asked, once they had gotten what he hoped was a safe distance from that _thing_. He looked away from it, and recognized her from the picture.

"Yes, I am," he said. "You're Katsuragi-san?" She nodded, and flashed him a smile.

"Sure am," she answered. She seemed remarkably cheerful for having just escape giant foot related death. How was it that she wasn't bothered by it? She had been just as- Wait. Why was he as unsettled as he was? He had been around giant, hostile creatures before, and had kept his head much better then. He looked back the receding form of the Angel, for it could be nothing else, and tried to figure out what about it had inspired such a sense of _wrongness_ in him. "Trying to figure out what that is, Ikari-kun?"

"You might say that," he responded. Its body was primarily black, with bony protrusions here and there. In the middle of its chest lay a large red orb (a weak spot if he had ever seen one), and what looked like some kind of mask for a face. Nothing about it physically seemed to scream at him though. It held out a hand, and a lance shot out from its palm and speared one of the VTOLs in mid-air. Okay then. Suddenly, it clicked. The thing had absolutely _no_ psychic presence. It was like looking at air. Good god, no wonder it had snuck up on him, it might as well have been a tiptoeing mouse. That explained things, _nothing_ alive should have a complete lack of psychic presence.

"That's an Angel, Ikari-kun," Katsuragi spoke up, startling him out of his ruminations. "That is what Nerv was made to fight?"

"Nerv?" he asked, playing the part of an unaware civilian.

"The organization your father runs," she responded.

"Don't call him that," he told her, frowning. "That man is not my father. He gave that right up the day he gave me up." Admittedly, gave him up to the best two people that had ever happened to him, but he had no way of knowing that. He would give him the respect due a commanding officer(barely), but Shinji had no love for Ikari Gendo.

"Umm, sorry?" Katsuragi hazarded.

"Don't worry about it," he waved the subject aside. "What, exactly, am I here for?"

"Hang on a sec," she said, pulling over on a hillside. "I want to get a look at what's going on over there." She lowered the window and grabbed a pair of binoculars. Shifting in her seat, she looked out at the Angel. No longer quite so bothered by it now that he had figured out _why_ it had bothered him, Shinji joined her, though his binoculars were still in America. Observing the battle, he frowned. Why were all the fighters pulling back like- "Get down!" Before he knew it, she had grabbed him and tucked him underneath her. The next thing he knew, the world had turned white.

**ED**

Riiskare pulled his wing back from his face to view the aftermath of the explosion. Even through the smoke, he could see the thing was not dead, it was already beginning to regenerate. He laughed, the Angel, Sachiel according to the prophecies Nichos had discovered, had had its face half blown off, so it appeared to be forming a whole new one in addition to the one that was still there. How... misdirected. Still, it appeared to be holding position until it returned to full strength, it had at least bought them time to get Shinji into his war machine. Shinji himself seemed all right, though a little shaken by the blast. He smiled to himself; served the little brat right for not listening to him earlier.

Movement caught his eye, and his expression darkened as Sachiel started to move again. Had it decided to continue despite its injuries? It looked skyward, and Riiskare followed. There appeared to be a satellite orbiting overheard. Had the Angel noticed it? Well, there wasn't much it could do, it was far beyond the range of those odd arm-lances- He pulled his head back in surprise. Sachiel had shot an energy beam from its eyes and destroyed the satellite in a...cross-shaped explosion?

He shook his head; just one more question these things had brought up. It had settled back into passive regeneration, and he reflected on what he had just seen. The Angel hadn't demonstrated any true long-range capability until that exact moment. Had it only just developed that ability? Were Angels capable of self-directed, active evolution? That could only be bad. What if the next one was only an improvement on Sachiel?

He shook those thoughts from his mind. They would offer no help now. He looked around, then decided to go find Shinji. Making sure to avoid any sensors that Nerv had, he quickly found the hill that Katsuragi's car rested on. The car itself was empty, and appeared rather the worse for wear. He found the two coming out of a car parts store, and listened in.

"Are you sure this is legal?" Shinji asked, carrying an armful of batteries.

"Absolutely," Katsuragi declared confidently. "As an officer of Nerv, I have full authority to requisition civilian supplies in the case of an emergency."

"If you say so, Misato-san," he replied. Oh, Shinji had made a friend. How nice.

"Don't you get smart with me, Shinji-kun!" she shot back. Hmm. That had seemed very... playful for an adult speaking to a teenager. He remembered Nichos telling him to be careful with Katsuragi, as there was "a strong possibility that she was into teenagers". He had laughed then, but now he _really_ hoped that he was joking, Iris would have a murderous fit if she thought Shinji was being taken advantage of. They loaded the batteries into the car and Katsuragi jury-rigged them into the engine. They quickly drove off and Riiskare turned his attention back to the Angel, determined to learn as much as he could about it.

Suddenly he felt a burst of panic from Shinji, and saw the car zipping across the street like a mad Desrathi. A quick mental check revealed that Katsuragi knew exactly what she was doing, and was in fact paying Shinji back for some snide remark he had made. Well, it was his fault, then, the boy had to learn to control his mouth. He opened his wings and took flight, so that he could get closer to Sachiel.

**ED**

After an... _eventful_ trip, Misato and Shinji had arrived at the Geofront. Even if he had known about it for years, it had still been an incredible thing to see. It easily matched the splendor of a Slinn-Klyyd Sub Dome. Misato had given him a few booklets to read about Nerv, and he was amazed at how little they actually told him. He knew more about Nerv by the time he was six, and Nerv hadn't even existed then! Fed up, he tossed the lot of them into the back of the car.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "Those are important-"

"Sorry," he interrupted. "But once I figured out they don't have anything about giant monsters, I kind of lost interest." She huffed at him.

"Rude!" She reached out and smacked him on the head. That was the second time today, maybe he should be learning something from this.

"Umm... sorry, Misato-san," he said, an apologetic look on his face. "I didn't mean to offend you." Her face softened.

"Don't worry about it, Shinji-kun," she said. "Just remember: Good manners are a virtue!"

"Uhh, right..." She really was something else. They parked the car and promptly got astoundingly lost. Shinji couldn't even blame Misato for this one, the interior of Nerv was practically a goddamned maze! He gave a deep sigh.

"Sorry, Shinji-kun," Misato said sheepishly. "I just moved here myself not too long ago, so I don't really know this place very well, yet."

"Don't worry about it," he responded. "I can see how it might be difficult to make heads or tails of this place." Seriously, this was ridiculous. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"There's supposed to be an elevator somewhere around here, have you seen it?"

"I-" They heard a ding, and looked down a hall to see an elevator at the end of it. "...may have seen one, just recently." The door slid open, and out stepped a blonde woman wearing a lab coat over a bathing suit. Right then and there, Shinji decided that life in Tokyo-3 was going to be very strange, and it would be a waste of time and energy being surprised about it. She looked extraordinarily annoyed.

"I'm sure there's a reason you've made us waste time and manpower looking for you, _Captain_ Katsuragi?" Hoo, boy. They were either really good friends or mortal enemies, and Shinji was a little afraid to check.

"Ahhh... Sorry, Ritsuko-chan," Misato said, that sheepish look on her face again. Okay, familiar suffix, less likely there would be a fight... "You know how it is..."

"Yes," the other woman said with a sigh, motioning for them to get in the elevator. "Yes, I do, Misato-chan." All right, safe to assume they were friends. She looked at him as she pressed. "Is this him?"

"Yep, according to the Marduk Report, this is the Third Child, Ikari Shinji," Misato said, as though presenting him at a party.

"Nice to meet you ma'am," he said, offering his hand. She took it and smiled.

"Well, you're a little friendlier than I would've expected," she said. Ah, yes. The wonders of being related to an asshole.

"Yeah, he's not much like his fath-uh, the commander, is he?" While the other woman looked at Misato strangely, she flicked him on the shoulder. "A little bit of a smartass, though."

"Really?" She looked at him expectantly.

"What?" he asked, giving an appropriate pause before continuing. "Oh, I'm sorry, but I can't just whip out a pithy phrase on command. It has to be born spontaneously, crafted to fit each individual situation." By the time he finished, none of them could keep the smiles off the faces.

"I think I like you, Shinji-kun," she said. "My name is Dr. Akagi Ritsuko." Oh, hell. The one sleeping with Gendo? Well, he shouldn't judge someone just on one _really_ bad choice, so... Eugh. The elevator came to a halt and they stepped out. They got into a raft and floated across a virtual sea of coolant. The two women were talking about how unlikely it was to activate Unit-001, Shinji was only half-listening. Most of his attention was on the conversation he was having with Riiskare.

[It is capable of regeneration,] the Dragon told him. [But not on a scale relevant to a single skirmish. For your purposes, it may as well not have any such ability.]

[I saw it shoot something out of its hand earlier, do you have any idea what it was?]

[Yes, I saw it do that as well. From what I am able to determine, the bone protrusions coming from its elbows are part of those lance-like objects, running through the forearm. As the... spear extends, Sachiel covers it with a specialized application of its AT-Field, rendering it capable of penetrating nearly any substance.]

[Including Eva armor?]

[I believe it would take multiple strikes in the same location, but yes, eventually.]

[What else?]

[I only saw this once, but it appears to now be able to make long-range strikes. It shot a satellite out of orbit shortly after the N2 explosion.]

[Potential weak points?]

[Most theories indicate that it cannot function without the core in its chest. Unless that is destroyed, only catastrophic damage could truly kill it.]

[So, stab it in the heart?]

[So it would seem.]

"Hey, Shinji-kun, wake up," a voice sounded, bringing his attention back to the world around him. They had docked somewhere, and Misato was motioning for him to get out of the raft. He did so, and she gave him a look. "Zoning out?"

"Eh," he shrugged. Now that he wasn't focused on Riiskare, he was starting to pick up something on the edges of his senses. He had no idea what it was though.

"In here, Shinji-kun," Dr. Akagi said, opening a door. Once he was inside, they closed the door, leaving the room in complete darkness. That sense of something was only stronger here, but he still couldn't put his finger on what it was. Suddenly, the lights flipped on, and he found himself face-to-purple-face.

"Big!" he shouted. Once he got ahold of himself, he realized that he was looking at Evangelion Unit-01. He realized he should say something. "Okay, I _know_ this wasn't in the books you gave me."

"This, Shinji-kun," Dr. Akagi began. "is the Artificial Human Evangelion Unit-01. It's the weapon we will use to fight the Angel outside." He was barely paying attention, all of his focus was on on the massive machine in front of him. This... was the thing that housed his mother's- his birth mother's soul. He realized that what he had been feeling was the impossibly large psychic presence it had, polar opposite to Sachiel, it was so large that he hadn't even thought to attribute it to a single entity. He tried to see if he could find his mother inside its mind, but all he could feel was the Eva's ferocity and savageness. If his mother was in there, she was too deep for him to sense.

"...So who's supposed to pilot it?" he heard as his attention returned to the world around him. "There's no way Rei could do it, and we don't have any reserve pilots." Misato. Did she really have no idea why he had been brought here now?

"You just delivered him," Dr. Akagi responded.

"You're joking!" Misato cried. She looked wildly between the doctor and Shinji, his own expression calmer than hers. "He doesn't have any training at all! It took Rei seven months to sync, and you expect him to just ride out and kill that thing on the first try?!"

"We don't 'expect' anything from him," Dr. Akagi said reasonably. "All he needs to is sit in it." Funny how she didn't say that that was technically all you had to do to pilot an Eva, even he knew that much. "Any pilot is better than none at all." They turned to look at Shinji, who was suddenly distracted by a depressingly familiar presence.

"You want me to pilot that thing," he said, looking up, where he felt _him_.

"Correct!" a voice sounded out. More lights came on, and he saw that man, standing over them all. He smirked at Shinji. "It's been a while."

"Gendo." Anyone else, he was too polite to go rooting around in their minds without permission, but the man who had abandoned him would receive no such courtesy. What he found there was both expected, ruthlessness, cunning, even a plan or two to blackmail him into piloting if he refused for some reason, and unexpected. Beneath all that, he saw a profound sadness and loneliness, and strong affection for his pseudo-sister, Ayanami Rei. The biting remark died before it left his lips. "...All I have to do is sit in it?" he asked, somehow tired after seeing something humanizing about Gendo.

"That's it," the man responded. "All other methods have failed. It will resume its attack soon. Everyone! Prep him for launch." He felt a small sliver of pride from Gendo, that he had so readily accepted his necessary duty, and a sense of relief that he hadn't had to hurt Ayanami to convince Shinji to do it. He pulled his mind away from Gendo's, and followed the technicians that would help him into the machine. Once inside, they had given him a pair of clips to put on his head, saying they would help him sync better. He wished he had a better idea of what that meant, what Maya had told him was incredibly vague. Speaking of which...

"Hello, Ikari-kun," she said, after a holographic panel had popped up with her face on it. "My name is Lieutenant Ibuki Maya."

"Nice to meet you, lieutenant," he said, holding back a smile. It was good to see her again.

"Making friends, Shinji-kun?" Dr. Akagi broke in, her face above Maya's.

"Everyone likes friends, Doctor."

"Fair enough. Start flooding the plug." Wait, what? Orange liquid started jetting into the cockpit, and he looked around wildly. Why didn't people tell him these things? "Don't worry, Shinji-kun, once that LCL saturates your lungs, it'll directly oxygenate your blood."

"You mean like liquid breathing?" he asked. Okay, he could do that, but how was he supposed to communicate? It's not like he could just bust out with his telepathy, and he had no idea if anyone here knew sign language. The liquid reached his chin, and, knowing holding his breath wouldn't help, ducked his head in and started inhaling as much as he could. Breathing out the last of his air, he noticed something. "Why does it taste like blood?" he said without thinking. "............More importantly, why can I speak?"

"Don't worry about it, Shinji-kun," Dr. Akagi told him. "Just know that LCL has some very unique properties. It will also act as a shock absorber in the entry plug, and most importantly, you need it to sync with the Eva."

"I've heard that before, but what does it mean?" Hopefully he could get a better explanation this time.

"Think of it as meshing your mind with that of the Eva," she said. "You want it to act as though it were your own body you're moving." Okay, that made sense. He nodded. "Good. All right everyone, start the activation process, we don't have much-" Everything shook suddenly. Misato popped up in another window.

"Its woken up, you guys, we need to hurry," she said, an urgent look on her face.

"Agreed. Start making the connections!" As they ran through everything that would make the Evangelion work, he settled back into his seat. The orange of the LCL faded into clarity, and the walls of the cockpit started glowing.

"Surreal," he felt the need to comment. It was almost like watching a light show. Eventually, it all coalesced into what he was sure the Eva's eyes saw. He felt its mind more strongly than ever, now, and did his best to imagine the Eva's body as his own.

"Umm, sempai?" he heard Maya call. "Am I reading this right?"

"What do you mean... Good god, this might actually work!" the doctor yelled. "Shinji, how are you doing this?!"

"Doing what?" he asked, bewildered.

"You have a synchronization ratio of 52 percent!"

"Umm, is that good?"

"Good?! You're a genius! We'd never have predicted that you could do this well on the first try!"

"If we could congratulate him later, Ritsu-chan," Misato interrupted. "We need to deploy as soon as possible."

"You're right, Misato-chan," Dr. Akagi sighed. "Check final preparations for launch."

"You ready for this, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked quietly.

"As I'll ever be, I think," he responded.

"Okay, once you're on the surface, we'll get you some practice walking and the like."

"Alright."

"We're ready for launch, Captain," Maya said. Misato nodded, and took a deep breath.

"Evangelion, launch!" Shinji expected to feel a great force as he was rocketed to the surface, but he barely felt anything. LCL did make a good shock absorber. Once he arrived, the magnetic locks holding the Eva disengaged, and he felt it slouch forward lightly.

"Shinji-kun, just focus on walking for now, alright?" Dr. Akagi said. He nodded, gave all his attention to putting one foot in front of the other. It was profoundly _weird_, feeling a foot rise and fall, yet knowing that he himself wasn't moving an inch. "Amazing..." He felt something, and looked down to see a long cable around his ankle. Er, the Eva's. He unhooked the Eva's foot from it, and then frowned.

"I'm not sure I like this," he said.

"What's wrong, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked.

"I don't know," he said, unsure of what he was thinking. "It feels like I'm... moving slowly. But I can see that I'm not, maybe even moving faster than normal." He waved his- the Eva's- fuck it- his hand to demonstrate. "I can't move my hand that fast, but it feels like there's a delay."

"Hmm..." Dr. Akagi looked thoughtful. "Have you been in any sports, Shinji-kun?"

"I've been trained in martial arts..." Not quite the truth, but close enough.

"That'd be it, then," she nodded. "If you've been trained to fight, you'd likely have highly developed reflexes, right?"

"I like to think so..." he ventured, unsure of where this was going.

"A 52 percent sync ratio means that you're halfway into the Eva's mind. What _that_ means is that the directions coming from you must be put through its mind somewhat before enacting them, diminishing reaction times. If you had 100 percent synchronization, it would be as fast as your own body performing."

"You mean my reaction times are cut in half?" he asked, dismayed. That could only be bad.

"I'm afraid so," she said. "Considering typical reaction speeds, most people wouldn't notice, but your training has obviously left you more aware of your body. The Eva itself is much stronger and faster than a human body, proportionally, so try to use that to make up for it." He nodded, and tried to reassure himself. Riiskare had told him that he hadn't seen the Angel move very fast at any given time, so hopefully he wouldn't need that reaction time, but it would still throw him off his game. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

"So, do I have any weapons, or do I just beat it to death with my bare hands?" he asked. A weapon would help.

"There's a knife in the left shoulder wing," Maya answered. He shrugged, that would work, he knew how to knife fight. Under their direction, he deployed it and gripped the hilt, settling into a combat stance. Sachiel stood about a kilometer away, and he swore it blinked at him. There was a flash, and he dove to the side with a curse as the delivery port was destroyed. They were right about his reaction times, that had been way too close. He had to get closer to it so that it wouldn't use that beam again.

Ducking behind buildings, he moved ever closer as it destroyed blocks of the city looking for him. As silently as he could, he crept around it, wanting to sneak up behind it. Just as he had raised his hand to stab it, it whirled around suddenly and grabbed his wrist, nearly pulling him off balance. He tried to break its grip, but there was much more strength in those skinny arms than he would've thought. The other hand came up and seized his face, and he panicked, realizing that the red hole that its spear would shoot out from was directly over his eye.

[Get ahold of yourself, boy!] a voice growled in his mind. [Skill is irrelevant if you cannot keep a calm state of mind! You possess another arm, use it!] Snapped back to himself, he quickly swung his left hand around to grab the knife from his immobilized right. He swung the knife, and it easily cut through the skinny arm holding his. Before he could attack again, though, he felt blinding pain in his eye, and knew that the Eva had tasted Sachiel's spear.

Forcing himself to ignore it, he felt it twice more before finally managing to remove the hand from his face. Unable to see out of his left eye(both of them), he slashed it across its faces. [Excellent! Demonstrate the folly of clashing with a student of the God of Warriors!] Shifting the grip of his knife, he whirled around and stabbed it in the core. Leaving the knife in it, he backed away and nearly collapsed against a building. The Angel simply fell back, and didn't move again.

"Shinji-kun..." he heard finally. He was sure they had been trying to talk to him throughout the battle, but he hadn't been listening at all. Misato, he thought, too tired, too unwilling to open his eyes to check. "That was... incredible."

"It's dead?" he gasped.

"All activity has ceased," he heard Maya say. "You won, Ikari-kun."

"Good," he nodded. Unable to resist, he finally passed out.

**ED**

Riiskare looked upon the battlefield with pride. All things considered, Shinji had done remarkably well for his first real fight. Watching as Nerv made to retrieve the immobile war machine, he contacted Nichos to make a report. Shinji wasn't strong enough to communicate over such distances yet, so he would gladly be the link between father and son. [The battle has ended,] he told his long time friend.

[Since we're all still here, I assume that Shinji won?] came the response.

[Your assumption is accurate,] he said. -Sachiel has passed on.-

[And Shinji? How is he?] He smiled, catching the note of anxiety in Nichos's mind. He saw the humans removing the entry plug from the Evangelion. [He will be fine. He is exhausted, though, mentally and physically.]

[Aren't we all, though, after our first kill?] Nichos replied. [He's a tough kid, though.]

[Indeed,] he agreed. [Not many humans could continue to fight after nearly having their eye run through.]

[.........What,] Nichos said flatly.

[I will send you a fuller image of the battle,] he told him, and transmitted his memory of the fight. There was a long pause as he waited for Nichos to review what he was being shown.

[...I see,] he said eventually. [Thank you, my friend, for helping him.]

[There was no question that I would,] he responded. [Your gratitude is not required.]

[Nevertheless...]

[What of your end?] he inquired. [Are there any recent developments?]

[We're still waiting for the information,] Nichos answered. [We'll move out soon enough.]

**ED**

And that's it! Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it so far. Sorry if you think the fight against Sachiel was short, but in my opinion, Sachiel was kind of a bitch as far as Angels go. If you ask me, the Shinji who fought Shamshel could have beaten Sachiel easily enough. The only reason this Shinji had the trouble he did was because of the problems with his reflexes mentioned above. If his reaction times were his own, or he was more used to piloting an Eva like Rei or Asuka, he would have been able to avoid Sachiel's grab. On that note, I have to admit that turning Shinji into a smartass came as more or less a complete surprise. It was fun, though, and I enjoyed having him get smacked for it. It's going to be great when he meets Asuka. A couple more things, here's a handy pronunciation guide for some of the names and whatnot that have come up.

Slinn-Klyyd: slin(as in slim) Clyde(as in the name)

Slyyn-Yii: Sline(rhymes with slime) Yee

Riiskare: Ree-skah-ray

Nichos: Nai-kos(coast without the 't')

Yiisea: Yee-say-ah

Lastly, a quick physical description of Nichos and Iris, as Shinji, Riiskare and Nichos himself had no reason to describe them in their narrations. Nichos is tall, I'd guess 6'4'' or so, with an athletic build. His most prominent feature would likely be his nearly floor length, raven black hair. Typically either let loose or kept in a ponytail, it also includes two bangs that frame his face, falling just past his chin. Iris, on the other hand, is about 5'6'', and is pretty well muscled herself, though still retaining a feminine figure. Her hair is a dark brown, reaching all the way down her back, and messy bangs that fall just short of her eyes. She almost always keeps it loose. Other than that, imagine what you like, it's a story after all.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask, and I'll do my best to answer. Please review, and other than that, I think we're done. Til next time.


	3. Chapter 2 part 1

All Right! Chapter two, in which various things continue to happen, primarily involving Shinji's interactions with the people he'll be working with, and his first bit of training, both in and out of the Eva. It guarantees to be a fun time. On another note, I'd wanted to get this out before the New Year. Obviously, I failed spectacularly. Such is life, though, so what can you do? This chapter's length actually got away from me, so I'm chopping it into two parts to get this out sooner. I can't think of much else to say, so we'll just get started.

**An Eva's Hand, and a Dragon's Claw**

Meeting the Team (part one)

"Oh, my precious Shin-chan..."

Wha...

"You were magnificent..."

Who was...

"I'm so happy to see you again...

Where was he...

"You've grown into a fine young man, Shin-chan..."

Wait, who are you...?

"I'll see you soon..."

No, wait, STOP!

His eyes shot open, revealing the white ceiling typical of a hospital. Damn it! He had been so close! His mind reeled, suddenly letting him know he had a splitting headache, before he could think. Wait, close to what?

"A Warrior's enlightenment?" came the response. He shook his head.

"No, nothing like that," he said. "I just can't remember..." He trailed off, realizing he wasn't alone. He snapped out of his bed, and saw none other than the God of Warriors himself, standing next to him, a small smile on his face. "What are you doing here?"

"I am unable to ensure the health of my charge?" he asked, amused.

"It just seems unsafe for you to actually be here," he replied, rubbing his head and falling back on his pillow.

"There are no cameras, and none will intrude upon us while I am here," Riiskare said confidently. "How do you feel?"

"Other than my head, I guess I'm all right..." the implications of that statement finally sank in. "Oh, hey! I can see out of my left eye again!"

"Sympathetic damage," the Dragon explained. "Your brain believed that your eye had been blinded, and so ceased receiving sensory input from it."

"I see," he said, closing his eyes. "If you're done, I think I want to rest for a bit."

"Just so," he heard. "I will say one final thing before departing: You did well, Shinji." He didn't hear anything after that, and knew his guardian and teacher had left. Shinji didn't think he could actually get back to sleep, so he let his thoughts drift naturally. Unsurprisingly, he found himself thinking about the people he had met yesterday.

Katsuragi Misato, she was a force unto herself. He remembered what his father had said: A good person, and excessive in personality. He had found that he liked her almost immediately. Even in the shadow of Sachiel, she had been incredibly cheery, and looking back, she had been very concerned for him in the Eva, despite having only just met him. She didn't seem to have a neutral shift.

On that note, he considered Dr. Akagi Ritsuko. If Misato was wild, she was grounded. She spoke with Misato as though they had known each other for years, and he wondered how they had met. Logical and work oriented, yet still possessing a sense of humor that had endeared him to her. Still, she was cagey, to work at Nerv as long as she had, one had to be. Worse yet, she was having se- no, not going there. Most of all, she was the one who "maintained" Ayanami Rei.

Ayanami... he hadn't actually met her yet. Maybe that was for the best; she was a clone of both his own mother and Lilith, the Progenitor of Humanity, and he had no idea what to say to her. Essentially his half-sister, she had been created by Gendo to serve as both a pilot and the eventual catalyst of Third Impact. According to Maya, she was emotionally suppressed to the point of being robotic. Most importantly, it was his job to convince her to lend support to him and his father, rather than help Gendo. Not an easy task, she was supposedly as loyal to Gendo as one of the Emperor's own Guards.

Much as he would have liked to avoid it, that thought brought him to the man himself. He had never forgiven Gendo for leaving him with someone else, and had told him as much when they had met at her grave three years ago. True to form, his response had been to tell Shinji that he didn't care. It had only cemented his image of Gendo as an unrepentant, unfeeling bastard, which had stood until yesterday. Not skilled enough back then to have directly probed his mind, it had only been yesterday that he had gotten a glimpse into the head of the Commander of Nerv.

He still didn't know what to think of what he had found there. He had seen a man broken by loss, and determined to the point of obsession to get what he had lost back. Yet even with all that, he cared for Ayanami, in a way that, for some reason, he thought himself incapable of caring for Shinji. That, more than anything else, had wrong-footed him. Both that Gendo could actually have affection for another person, and that he believed it impossible with Shinji. The reason for _that_ was as yet beyond his reach, buried deeply in Gendo's mind.

He sighed, and opened his eyes. Thinking about Gendo was only making his headache worse. He reached out and grabbed the remote, maybe there was something about the attack on the news. Unlikely, given how secretive Nerv was, but you never know...

"-scenes of devastation abound in Tokyo-3, with nearly a third of the city destroyed. In a recording anonymously sent to news organizations the world over, we have an explanation for the destruction." The image shifted from the anchor to- the Angel! There it was, in all its unholy glory. And- there was Unit-01! He even recognized what was happening, that was when he had dodged Sachiel's beam weapon, the launch catapult getting destroyed in the process. The view changed to an overhead shot of Sachiel destroying whole blocks looking for him, Unit-01 just barely visible in one corner. "In a press release earlier this morning, Nerv verified that the creature depicted is responsible." The image shifted to an elderly man standing in front of a podium, the Nerv logo blazoned upon it.

"It is true that a creature of unknown origin assaulted Tokyo-3," the man said. He had the voice of a professor, Shinji wondered who he was. "However the creature, codenamed an Angel, was repelled and destroyed by our own weapon." The view returned to the fight, just as he had carved off the Angel's second hand. He watched as Unit-01 spun around to stab it, and noticed that the only thing that was in frame afterwards was Sachiel falling, no hint that Unit-01 had collapsed.

"Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki answered very few questions, leaving reporters wondering many things: Why had the creature attacked? How had Nerv known to build such a large-scale weapon to combat it? And most importantly, why was a child chosen to pilot the weapon?" With a start, he recognized himself, soaked with LCL, being pulled out of the cockpit. He hit mute, and sat back, amazed, as more video of his fight crossed the screen. He hadn't actually thought that the reality of the attack would come out! At that moment, Maya came in. She gave him a smile, and hugged him.

"It's good to see you again, Shinji-kun," she said. She took a seat next to the bed. "How do you feel?"

"All right, I guess," he responded. His headache was a little better. She glanced at the TV, and noticed what he had been watching.

"You saw that, huh?" she said more than asked. "We have no idea who took that video. You can hardly tell, but the Commander was furious."

"I bet," he responded. "Who would be suicidal enough to get close enough to get those shots? Hell, half of them are overhead, how would they-" Wait a minute... No... [You didn't.]

[Your father thought the populace would benefit from this knowledge,] Riiskare replied. [I was more than happy to oblige.]

"It's _him_, isn't it?" Maya asked quietly. She had always been in awe of the God of Warriors, and his voice and style of speech were easily identifiable. He nodded.

"He was here a few minutes ago," he told her.

[I have not truly left,] Riiskare said. [I am still here, right beside you.]

[What?]

[Holography is an incredibly useful technology, do you not agree?] With that, the Dragon seemed to fade into existence, and Shinji realized that he had never left, only hiding himself behind a holographic projection. He turned to Maya. "I offer you my greetings, Ibuki-san." She nodded, looking a little overwhelmed.

"You realize that you've turned me into a celebrity while I was asleep, right?" Shinji asked, annoyed. He had thought the idea was to keep as low key as possible.

"We are not unaware of the consequences," the response came, his tone almost jocular. "Rest assured, your father knows what he is doing."

"You could have at least told me," he groused. "Did you expect me to figure it out on my own?"

"You did, did you not?" The Dragon said, now clearly having fun with him. "From my perspective, all has turned out well enough."

"How am I supposed to deal with this?" Shinji asked pointedly. "It's not like you could keep up with my training with a host of reporters all over me."

"I shall not need to," he said. "Nerv security will keep the paparazzi from hounding you constantly, and your security detail will be simple for me to handle."

"If you say so, but I-"

"Good morning, Shinji-kun!" Misato's voice came, as she entered the room. He whirled around, horrified for a moment before realizing that she would never discover his extraterrestrial guardian. Sure enough, the Dragon was gone again. "Oh, hi, Maya-chan," she said. To her credit, Maya managed to keep her composure.

"Hello, Captain," she said, resisting the urge to glance at where they knew Riiskare was that was emanating from her in waves. "I was just checking up on Ikari-kun."

"Well, everything indicates that he should be fine," Misato replied. "What do you think, Shinji-kun?"

"Uh, I'm fine, I guess," he said. "Do I get to leave soon?"

"Yep, I just came here to see if you were good with being checked out," she said. "I'll be right back, I need to talk with administration." She turned and left.

"Holy crap," Shinji breathed, sinking into his bed. He turned to glare at Riiskare, once again visible. He knew, objectively, that Misato could never have discovered him, but still... "Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to someone with you in the room?"

"Just so," he answered with a grin. "Amazing, is it not, how simple it is to prevent one from noticing what one does not expect?" He stood, stretching as much as he could in the small hospital room.

"Just tell me, there was a reason for that, right?" he nearly pleaded.

"Mmm..." the Dragon adopted a considering face. Shinji knew only one answer could come from this, and his spirits sank. "No. I could easily have remained outside and communicated telepathically, but I desired to see you in person, and this situation was an unexpected opportunity to take amusement at your expense."

"You're welcome for saving the world," he muttered. It was easy to forget, with his unique speaking style, and frequently subsuming himself in teaching combat, that Riiskare had a personality behind the title of God of Warriors.

"Yes, yes, your most prominent issue is under-appreciation," he said dryly. "I will depart now, Shinji. Inform me when you have acquired a place of residence." He turned to Maya. "Ibuki-san, good day." With that, the Dragon faded away again, leaving Shinji and Maya alone.

**ED**

Riiskare smiled to himself as he crept silently through the air vents(why Nerv had such large air vents was beyond him, but he couldn't complain). He had been messing with Shinji in one way or another practically since the day they had met. It was good for him, as it kept him from getting too big a head about his role in humanity's fate. A Warrior with his head pointed to the clouds could not see the claws aimed for his throat, after all. Not telling him about the video was the best yet, the look on the boy's face was priceless.

An odd feeling made him pause, and he peered out into the hallway below him. Hospital staff were wheeling someone from the surgery wing... Ah, it was Ayanami. Examining her, he realized what had drawn his attention: he couldn't read her. Unlike Sachiel, with no psychic presence at all, he could perceive her, but it was as if she had the strongest mental shields he had ever encountered. Whatever was going on behind those red eyes was her secret. How fascinating, these humans. When Hybridized, they were the equal of any Slyyn-Yii, their scientific advancement progressed at ludicrous speeds, for all his physical limitations, Shinji had been the best student he had ever had, and now this. Truly, his brothers were making a huge mistake in ignoring these people.

He followed the girl to her room, determined to learn as much as he could. Once the doctors had gotten her settled and left, he began his examinations. As subtly as possible, he probed at her mind, testing for any possible weaknesses, trying to divine the nature of her defenses. It wouldn't do to be discovered at this poi-

"I know you are there," a quiet voice came from below. Well, crap. "I do not know who you are, but if you do not show yourself, I will sound an alarm." Not good. He should evacuate, he couldn't...... oh, oh, that was a _good_ idea. He really shouldn't, but now that he had thought of it, he couldn't resist.

[All the security on the planet would be unable to bring me harm, child,] he told her, intensely curious as to her reaction. To his slight disappointment, she hardly moved, but her vocal reaction was far more interesting.

"These words are neither hers nor my own, but I hear them in my mind," she said. Hers? What did _that_ mean? His eyes widened. Was there a lingering connection between this girl and the sleeping beast below? "Who are you?"

[That will have to remain a secret, Ayanami-san,] he said. [And I must insist that this conversation remain so as well.]

"What can you do to ensure my silence?" she asked. There was no fear, no challenge, no concern in her voice. Coming from a human, it was almost unreal.

[The ongoing attachment of Ikari Gendo's head to his neck should serve as sufficient collateral, I think.] _That_ got a reaction. Her one visible eye widened ever so slightly. Perhaps that was the best approach. Now that she knew he was there, he stepped up his probes, still unable to find the slightest weakness, though he had formed a theory or two as to the nature of her mind.

"...What are you?" she asked finally. Ah... there was the tiniest tinge of fear in her voice now.

[Despite my words, I am not your enemy,] he said. [For now, that will have to do.]

"I have no reason to trust you," she responded. "You just threatened the commander of humanity's best hope for continued existence." Well, that was fair.

[Hmm, perhaps this will assuage your fears,] he said. Now, to plant the seed... [One, very good reason that I would prefer not to harm your commander is... Ikari Shinji.] Before she could react, he left.

Once outside, he alighted on a nearby hill. Feeling safe, he dropped all illusions. There was no one to see him here. Next, to contact Nichos.

[Nichos, I have a report,] he called, linking with his friend's mind.

[Hmm? Hang on a bit,] the response came. He waiting, knowing that the Hybrid could be busy with anything for all he knew. [Okay, what do you have?]

[Shinji is aware that people are aware,] he began. [I am uncertain if he is more annoyed at me for taking the video, or you for thinking of it.]

[Right,] Nichos laughed. [What else?] Riiskare sighed, he wasn't sure how Nichos would take this.

[I inadvertently made contact with Ayanami.] There was silence for a moment.

[What do you mean?] There was an uncommon flatness to Nichos's tone. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't upset yet.

[I came upon her on my way out of the hospital, and noticed something unusual...] He told Nichos of the encounter, then waited for his response.

[...I see,] he said at last, his tone thoughtful. [How did she notice you?]

[I cannot say. Even Iris would not have noticed me, were it her.]

[Interesting. And you were never able to get anything from her?]

[Not even the most superfluous of surface thoughts.]

[Hmph. Well, you did what you could. Be sure to tell Shinji about this. He needs to know that she might approach him, now.]

[Just so,] he agreed.

[How is it that she was able to block you, do you think?]

[I am uncertain, but an idea presents itself.]

[What is it?]

[It is her nature as part Angel. The AT-Field barrier that serves as the division between human minds is far stronger in her, allowing not only individuality, but complete sanctuary of the mind.]

[An interesting theory, my friend,] Nichos said, once again thoughtful. [I'm sure Iris would love to test it once she is able.]

[Until then, I will continue to observe, and learn what I am able.]

[Sounds good. When will you resume Shinji's training?]

[As soon as I am able,] he assured Nichos. [It should be interesting, now that he has experienced true combat.]

[Yeah... I wish I could see him, but...] Riiskare smiled.

[You need not worry,] he said. [I will keep him on the, ah... "straight and narrow".] That got a laugh.

[Right. One more thing, will you contact Ayanami again?]

[For now, no,] he replied. [I will allow Shinji to determine when she is ready to meet me.]

[Sounds good,] Nichos said, sounding satisfied. [Talk to you later.]

[Pass my greetings to Iris.]

[Of course.] At that, he thought it a good time for a nap.

**ED**

After Riiskare had left, Shinji and Maya had talked about nothing for a few minutes, and Misato had shown up and said he was checked to leave. Maya had left at that point, citing a need to go back on duty. Misato had escorted him to meet with Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki, the man from the press release, who had given him his housing accommodations. It had seemed that he would be living in his own apartment, which was fine. Misato had taken exception, though, so here he was, doing the crossword again, while she was convincing Dr. Akagi to let him live with her. Why she was the one to talk to he didn't know, but...

"Relax, Ritsu-chan," Misato said into the phone. "It's not like I'm going to seduce him or anything."

"DAMN STRAIGHT YOU'RE NOT!!!" Dr. Akagi's voice roared. That was impressive, he wasn't even that close to the phone. "WHY IS YOUR MIND EVEN GOING TO A PLACE LIKE THAT?!" Misato eventually calmed the doctor down, and apparently gained approval to take him in.

"All right, Shinji-kun!" she said happily. "Grab your stuff and head for the car, you're living with me!" He stashed his magazine in his bag and started following her.

"It's not that I'm ungrateful, but you didn't need to do this, Misato-san," he said.

"Hey, I couldn't just let you live on your own," she responded. "Don't worry, you'll love it at my place."

"I'm sure..." They were silent the rest of the way to the car, where Misato told him they had to get some groceries. He nodded, and got out his crossword. He kept one eye on the road, though, in case he had to leap out of the car if Misato started driving wildly again. They talked about various things on the way, and real quick he told Riiskare that he'd be living with Misato. At the store, more than one person recognized him from the video, but a glare from Misato seemed to be enough to keep them from approaching. He insisted that they get as much food as possible, as he was a big eater. Once they had gotten their groceries, though, he noticed that they seemed to be going out of town. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Just hang on a minute," she said. They reached a cliff that overlooked the city, and she motioned for him to get out and look. As he did, though, he couldn't help but feel a little depressed. He could see the large portion of the city that had been destroyed in the fight last night. Even if you ignored that, the city just seemed so... sparse. He looked at Misato to make some stupid comment to salvage his mood, but he saw her looking at her watch. "It should be just about to... there!" Almost as if on command, sirens sounded from below. And then...

"Whoa..." was all he could say. Buildings were rising out of the ground! They all came alive with lights, and, in that moment, it was the most beautiful thing Shinji had ever seen. "...I...that's...incredible..."

"That's Tokyo-3," Misato said proudly. "The final fortress of mankind, and the city that you saved, Shinji-kun." Pride welled up in him, and for the first time, what he had done seemed _real_. Unable to say anything, he ran a hand through his hair and flapped his jaw uselessly a little. "I thought you'd appreciate this," she said with a small laugh. "Come on. Let's go home."

"...Yeah." He was speechless for the rest of the ride, thinking about what he had seen. The only thing that could have improved that moment was if his parents had been there too. They eventually reached the apartment building, and went to the tenth floor. By that time he had started speaking again.

"Sorry about the mess," Misato said as she opened the door. "I haven't really had the time to tidy up."

"So long as the air's breathable, I think I'll manage," he said easily. "Tell you what, as thanks for taking me in, I'll clean up." How bad could it be, after all?

"Glad to hear it," she said, and stepped in. She turned and motioned for him to come in.

"I'm... home," he said, as he stepped over the threshold, aware of tradition.

"Welcome home," Misato said warmly. "Just set the bags anywhere."

"All right, I, I, oh, my, god..." What the hell?! What was this?! Tossed aside fast food bags! Piled up trash bags! Take out boxes, take out boxes, take out boxes! And beer cans! What was with the beer cans?! And was that underwear?! He dropped the bags to the floor, fell to his knees, and let out a silent scream, his fists raised to the heavens.

"Oh, it isn't that bad!" Misato said, clearly thinking him being overly dramatic. He turned to her, astonished.

"Are you high?!" he practically screamed. "This is madness! If my mother saw this she'd blow up the whole building just to erase any evidence that this had ever existed! I'm not even kidding! She wouldn't even care about any of the residents! Everything would go boom! Eeeyah!" He leaped for the closet, dug out as many cleaning supplies as he could, and went to work.

**ED**

A massive wave of distress emanating from town snapped Riiskare out of his nap, and he quickly identified the source as Shinji. In an instant he was on the roof of the neighboring building, ready to leap through the wall to defend the boy, before seeing a series of full garbage bags fly out the window and almost miraculously land in the dumpster below. The unusual sight prompted him to more closely examine the situation, and he saw that Shinji was freaking out over... a mess. Then again, it was the kind of mess that would prompt Iris to destroy the building, so maybe her tendency to react badly to such things had rubbed off on him. He shrugged, and went back to his hill.

**ED**

As he put the last of the cleaning supplies away, Shinji had to suppress the urge to cackle like a lunatic. He had at last vanquished the villainous filth. He turned, satisfied with his work, to look at Misato, who had at one point or another changed into a loose shirt and very short shorts. She was staring at him, her jaw nearly on the floor. "What?"

"'What?'" she repeated. "I've never seen someone move like that! That was inhuman!"

"Oh, don't talk to me about inhuman!" he shot back, an accusing finger pointed at her. "How are you still alive, living in that?!"

"I told you before it wasn't that bad!" she returned.

"Really?! The only reason I can think of is that this place was too toxic for bacteria to live in!" For all of his outrage, inwardly he was smiling. Arguments are fun.

"Too toxic- That's ludicrous!"

"Well, look at you! No one living in such a hovel should look as good as you! If you have a better explanation, I'd love to hear it."

"Hovel?!" By this point, their faces were a scant few centimeters apart, practically snarling at each other. Shinji decided to end things here, for fear of things getting too heated.

"You know what, I'm sorry," he said. He did get to enjoy watching the anger drop from her face to be replaced by surprise.

"Wait, what?" She looked at him like he was completely insane.

"Yeah, I take it back," he said, scratching his head. "Just having a bit of fun."

"Fun?" she echoed. "That was fun for you?"

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "An argument can be plenty fun, so long as you don't take it too seriously." She stared at him for a moment, then gave up and sat at the table.

"I can tell living with you is going to be interesting, Shinji-kun," she said. He smiled.

"As though defending humanity from giant monsters for a living wasn't interesting enough," he said, heading for the fridge. He wondered why there were two, though, as he opened the closer one and-

You know what? He wouldn't ask. Whatever the reason this woman needed like fifty _gallons_ of beer, he didn't want to know. "Can I have one?"

"No," she said without hesitation.

"You want one?"

"Yes, please," she said just as easily. He grabbed a can and tossed it to her. She snatched it out of the air, cracked it open, and drained it in about ten seconds. She slammed the empty can onto the table. "Aww, yeah! That's the good stuff!"

"Are these walls soundproof?" he asked, sitting down. "Because if they're not, I'm pretty sure the next prefecture heard that."

"Yes, they are," she said with a half-hearted glare. He flashed a grin.

"Oh, good. Now I know where to take girls to." She burst out laughing. He was glad his new... roommate? Guardian? Whatever... had a good sense of humor. Once she calmed down, she got up and headed for the kitchen.

"Since this is your first night, I'll make dinner," she said, rummaging through a cabinet. "Afterwards we can divide up the chores." That sounded fair to Shinji, so he nodded and dug out his magazine, he wanted to work on the crossword. "Do you like ramen?"

"Sure," he said. Seven letter word for bad food... spoiled.

"Great." Five letter word for set on fire, ends with 't'... burnt. "I hope you like it spicy." Used to make boxes, nine letters... cardboard.

"Spicy's fine." Threatening to life, six letters, begins and ends with 'l'... lethal, obviously.

"It'll just be a few minutes." Huh, famously bad chef... eh, come back to that one later.

"All right." Waiting for Misato to finish dinner, he managed to solve several more clues. He figured he was about half-done when she set the cups of ramen on the table.

"Let's eat!" she called out. Shinji took a big bite of noodles and promptly gagged. He just managed to swallow what was in his mouth, and barely resisted the urge to fan his tongue. How was it possible for something to have all the flavor of a block of wood and simultaneously be mouth-scorching?

"You know what?" he said, standing up. "I don't think I'm really all that hungry..." Misato, happily slurping at her own noodles, bit them off and glared at him.

"What?" she asked, her voice menacing. She slammed her chopsticks to the table and was suddenly nose to nose with him. "You're not a picky eater, _are you?_" Being raised by Nichos and Iris Ramaiden, who were real "contact people", had left him without any real sense of personal space, which was all that was keeping her from pressing him right back into his seat.

"I wouldn't call having a tongue being picky, myself," he answered. Seeing that he wasn't intimidated by her extreme close-up, she backed off a bit. Shinji thought she would leave it at that, but a rather nasty smile came over her face.

"Fine then," she said, a smug tone coloring her words. "If you don't like my food, then you can just make your own dinner." Was that it? Hoo boy, if she thought that would be a disappointment for him, she had best think again.

"Great," he said. He had been taught to cook by both of his parents, and his survival training meant that he could do a lot with just a bit of food. He quickly made his way to the kitchen.

**ED**

Sourly nursing another beer, Misato considered her new charge as he headed to the bathroom for a bath, having finished whatever it was that he had made for himself. It seemed western, but he wouldn't tell her what it was and, to her annoyance, had only made enough for himself and wouldn't let her try any. She really couldn't make heads or tails of the boy. He was very friendly, but he used sarcasm like a second language and teased her just as easily as she did him. It wasn't that she couldn't take it, Kami knew she was used to it from Ritsu-chan, but she hadn't expected a fourteen year-old to keep up with her. She thought it funny that he treated arguing as a game, and decided that she wouldn't take any of the ones they might have seriously, as she knew he wouldn't. Even more interesting, he had accepted his job as a pilot very easily, it was almost as if he hadn't been that surprised by it. Then, in the time it had taken to change out out her work clothes, he had rendered half her apartment spotless.

Everyone had been caught off-guard by his ability to sync with the Eva, though, and the way he had used cover to approach the Angel... She had to wonder what kind of upbringing he had had. He had said he'd been trained in the martial arts, but she'd never met anyone that could get a fourteen year-old that good without a military background. Still, he spoke very fondly of his adopted parents, so she didn't think he had been abused. Nevertheless, he hadn't even seemed traumatized by the fight, despite nearly having his brain run through. Hmm.... It seemed a mystery had fallen into her lap. Still, she liked him. She heard a shout come from the bathroom, and smiled into her beer. He must have found Pen-Pen. Sure enough, a half-naked Shinji leaned into the doorway, holding her penguin by the scruff of his neck.

"Sorry," he said, looking for all the world like he was talking to Pen-Pen. "but I don't allow penguins to watch me take baths." He set the penguin on the floor.

"WARK! Wark!" Pen-pen shouted at him.

"I don't care, you've been in there since I got here, let other people have a turn." Okay, he _was_ talking to Pen-Pen.

"Wark wark wark-wark!" And Pen-Pen was talking back. Marvelous.

"Well, I'm living here too, now, so deal." The penguin turned around in a huff, grabbed a beer, and hopped into his freezer. You know what? Whatever. Life in Tokyo-3 was weird anyway, this was just more of the same.

"Misato-san?" She turned back to Shinji.

"Yes, Shinji-kun?" she asked evenly.

"There's a penguin in your apartment, Misato-san," her told her flatly.

"I know, Shinji-kun. He's a hot springs penguin, very rare." He wanted to play that game, fine with her.

"Misato-san?"

"Yes, Shinji-kun?"

"Your penguin drinks, Misato-san."

"Let him make his own decisions, Shinji-kun."

"Misato-san?"

"Yes, Shinji-kun?"

"He's not very friendly, Misato-san."

"Just let him get used to you, Shinji-kun."

"...Misato-san?"

"Yes, Shinji-kun?"

"Tokyo-3 is a weird place, isn't it?"

"Yup."

**ED**

Once Shinji had finished with his bath, Misato had declared that they would divide the chores by Rock-Paper-Scissors, which was fine with him. He had promptly lost a good six times out of seven, which had turned out to be easier than he might have thought. Reading her mind had been nearly pointless, as she was very good at reading people. It was almost the exact opposite of Riiskare; she had such force of personality that one could easily forget about her military background. Naturally, she had made fun of him for being so bad at the game, to which he had responded that he had better things to do than stand in front of a mirror practicing to himself. That had set off another argument, but he could tell that she was enjoying it too, this time. Once they had run out of things to say, she had shown him which room would be his.

"And for the finishing touch..." She produced a sign and a marker from... somewhere, and quickly scribed something on it. "There!" Huh, "Shinji's Lovely Suite"... Not bad, but...

"Give." He snatched the marker, flipped the sign around, and wrote what he thought was a good counterpart to Misato's sign.

"Shinji's Den of Horrors?" she read, looking at him funny.

"Yeah, now it can be whatever I need it to be, see?" He flipped the sign around a few times, finishing on Lovely Suite. "It's like a do not disturb sign, only much better."

"Huh. I like it," she said, giving him a smile. Oh, this one was a keeper. "Do you need you help getting your stuff inside?"

"Nah, I got it," he said, waving his hand. "Most of my stuff is still over in the States, I'll send for it tomorrow." He went and grabbed his suitcase. "Is that it?"  
"Yeah, I guess," she said, leaning against the wall. "You turning in?"

"Yeah, once I unpack," he responded. He went into his new room, pretty bare except for the bed. He turned to Misato. "Good night, Misato-san."

"Good night, Shinji-kun."

**ED**

When Riiskare woke up, he judged that it was about six from the rising sun. An excellent time to start training.

[Shinji, are you awake?] he called.

[Yeah, I was just gonna make breakfast,] the response came. [What do you want?]

[Splendid. Make your meal after training,] he told the boy. [I want you to come here. It is time for your training to resume.]

[Fine, where are you?] He sent a metal image of the hill he was on. [Alright, I'll be there soon.]

[For your warm up, you will run here,] he said. [I will be timing you. I doubt you will appreciate the consequences of a poor performance.] He reactivated his holographic camouflage, and set to work programming the hologram that he would use to keep up the illusion of Shinji being alone, once he got there. A fifty meter radius seemed reasonable.

[All right, "Master",] Shinji retorted. For all the fun Riiskare had with him, Shinji never took it lying down. [When does the clock start?]

[Inform me when you reach the street,] he said. [Ten minutes should be a reasonable deadline.] There was silence for some time, and he quickly finished the new program. Rigorous exercise, several katas, that ought to be enough to explain to any onlookers how exhausted Shinji would be when they were done.

[Okay, I'm down here now,] Shinji said eventually. [I just had to get dressed and leave a note for Misato.]

[Excellent,] he said, queuing up a stopwatch function on his artificial eye. [You may begin... now.] To his delight, Shinji made it in nine minutes, only barely out of breath, dressed in sweats. [I am pleased to see your days off have not made you soft. Stand there, and we may begin.] Shinji took the position indicated, and Riiskare activated the hologram. Once he was sure it was running, he dropped his own. "Splendid. Are you prepared for your morning training?" he asked. Shinji nodded. "Excellent. Since you were obviously unprepared to deal with diminished reflexes, we will be focusing on that. If you would permit it, I will inhibit your reflexes to the 52 percent response time you would have in your war machine." Exerting that kind of influence on another person's brain without permission was nearly impossible, even for a Mentalist.

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Shinji said. "They said that as I get better at piloting, my synchronization will improve."

"Until then, we will work with what we have," he responded. He reached out with his mind, and carefully began to slow the firing of neurons, until they were just over half their previous speed. "It is done. Now, let us spar."

They both fell into combat stances, and Riiskare already took note of Shinji's diminished reaction time. He held his position and allowed Shinji to make the first move. The boy lashed out with a side kick, and he easily ducked under it. Shinji pivoted around and brought his other foot up, then down again in an ax kick. He leaned his head out of the way, then grabbed Shinji's leg and pulled him forward. Shinji caught himself just before hitting the ground, and brought the knee of his free leg up to catch Riiskare on the chin. The Dragon pulled his head back to avoid the strike, but if Shinji were at full capability he probably would have taken the hit.

"You are fighting as if you were at full speed," he told his student. "You are too slow now to try tricks like that." Naturally, Riiskare wasn't fighting at his best either, but he always kept to a consistent speed, strength, and reflex level to give Shinji a challenge. He slammed his fist into Shinji's gut, then dragged him across the ground and tossed him aside. Shinji rolled with the throw and stood up again, waiting for him to make the next move.

Riiskare obliged, lunging at Shinji with a quick claw swipe. To his surprise, Shinji dropped to the ground under his attack, grabbed his arms, and dug both feet into his stomach. With the momentum, Shinji kicked him over and he landed on his back. He flipped to his feet just in time to catch a kick in the throat. Caught off-guard, he did not resist as Shinji followed up with an uppercut into his chin. His head snapped back, but he kept his eye on the boy and saw Shinji's hands reach up to grab his jaw. Shifting his feet, he kept his head moving and pivoted around, swinging his tail to knock Shinji to the side.

"Excellent!" he called, waiting for Shinji to get back up. "Anticipation, taking advantage of a downed enemy, these are the methods with which you will defeat foes with superior speed." Shinji got to one knee, and stayed there.

"But Sachiel wasn't really faster than me, I could tell," his student said.

"Nevertheless, if you are unable to bring your speed to bear in a sufficiently swift manner, it may as well not exist." he countered. "Now stand, and let us continue." Shinji did so, and they clashed again. Neither of them were trying to read each other's mind in this fight, as he was training Shinji to fight Angels; psychic powers seemed useless against the massive beings. He caught Shinji's fist and pulled, rearing back to bring his foot up to catch Shinji in the chest and slam him to the ground, careful not to poke him with his talons.

They sparred for over an hour before Riiskare had them stop. As always, he marveled at Shinji's talent and ability to learn. No matter the lesson set before him, he always seemed to grasp the essential message and at least try to put it to use. Shinji wasn't quite up to his usual level yet, but he had adapted to his inhibited reflexes incredibly quickly. He mourned the fact that Shinji had to remain human, if he had been trained as a Warrior, Riiskare believed that he could have eventually surpassed his father in fighting ability, perhaps even himself, he wouldn't be God of Warriors forever. Even so, he had tried his best to create a sort of abridged Warrior training, and Shinji had done nothing but excel.

"Normally, I would begin weapons training now," he began, bidding Shinji to sit down. "But I believe that Nerv will attend that matter later today. Instead, I wish to discuss something I observed the other day."

"You mean... during my fight with... Sachiel?" Shinji asked, looking fairly exhausted.

"Before," he clarified. "At the time I had not given much thought to the occurrence, but the more I review that day, the more I think about it."

"What do... you mean?"

"Before the N2 mine was launched, Sachiel seemed to... jump over several buildings to crush some of the U.N.'s aircraft. Looking back, however, I believe that is used its AT-Field to propel itself into the air."

"You can do that?" Shinji asked, looking confused. The boy seemed to be getting his breath back, though.

"So it would seem," he replied. "The next time you have the opportunity, see if you are able to experiment with your AT-Field. It may well be possible to utilize it as a weapon."

"Well, I can see how that would be useful," his student quipped.

"Indeed," he agreed. "Now then, I noticed you had difficulty dealing with the Angel's beam attack, resulting in a rather large portion of the city being destroyed."

"Yeah..." The boy didn't seem to understand where he was going, all the better for the next bit of training. He smiled.

"You can understand that it would be preferable to avoid that level of collateral damage in the future, yes?" he asked.

"Of course," Shinji nodded.

"Excellent." He leaped back several meters, and charged a weak version of his red lightning. He shot at his student, who barely managed to dive out of the way with a yelp. "There is no cover here! Approach me before I fire off ten shots!" He let loose another shot, which Shinji more easily avoided. "It's like tag, boy! Move it!" He released yet another shot, and the boy finally started running at him. "That's it, boy! Come at me!"

**ED**

As Shinji ran home for his cooldown exercise, he gave thanks to Yiisea or whoever for Draconic medical technology. Riiskare had zapped him multiple times in the last half hour, insisting that he eventually be able to make it across twenty meters before the Dragon could fire five lightning shots. More than once, it had been better to just take the shot and keep moving, as the consequences for failure had turned out to be restriction of his reflexes for a whole week, once Riiskare had done that to him, there was nothing that could really force him to_ un_do , he had avoided that fate, and it felt _good_ to have his body back at full speed. He also felt incredibly hungry, a side-effect of being healed so quickly. Nothing he wasn't used to, though, and exactly why Riiskare and his father had always had his training sessions before meals.

He made it to the apartment and, deciding to treat himself, took the elevator up. He hadn't made up his mind what he would have for breakfast(other than that he was _not_ going to let Misato make it. He would gladly make every meal for the rest of his life if it meant he never had to taste that again), but he knew it would be something with a whole lot of sausage. He had made sure that they had bought plenty of sausage yesterday. Okay then, what went with sausage? Waffles. Waffles went with sausage. But wait, did Misato have a waffle maker? Eh, probably not. So, pancakes, then? Yes, pancakes and sausage, all covered in syrup, maybe with an orange, and a tall, cool glass of milk. Part of a balanced breakfast. Yes. Before long, Misato staggered into the kitchen to find him making that very breakfast, looking like hell.

"You want me to put a pot of coffee on, Misato-san?" he asked. His parents had forbidden him from ever touching the stuff, but he knew that most people were rather dependent on it.

"Nah, I'm good," she answered in what was mostly understandable Japanese. She opened the fridge and pulled out a beer.

"Misato-san," he said disapprovingly. "It's like eight. What are you doing?" She whirled on him, pointing the can at him in a vaguely threatening manner.

"I'll have you know," she began, with all the superiority of an impenetrable debate point. "That it's considered traditional to have a cup of sake with a Japanese breakfast."

"There are three things wrong with that," he told her, pointing his spatula at her. "First off, I'm not making a Japanese breakfast. Second, said breakfast isn't even done, yet. And third, a can of beer and a cup of sake are not the same thing." She just stuck her tongue out at him, so he shrugged and turned back to the stove.

"!" He spun around and whipped the spatula into the dining room, and leaped after it, ready to beat the hell out of Misato's attacker. What he found, though, was the spatula embedded in the wall next to her head, an empty can of beer on the floor, and a big "scared shitless" look on her face. "...Sorry?" she offered.

"Sorry?!" he nearly screamed, the adrenaline buring through his body. "What the hell was that?! I thought you were being stabbed!" He sagged against the wall, clutching at his rapid-firing heart. After a moment, he glanced at the spatula, still sticking out of the wall. "Um... I don't suppose you have more than one spatula?"

"I... think so," Misato said eventually. He got up and went back into the kitchen. After a while, a plaintive question came from the dining room. "Can I have another beer?"

**ED**

Nichos sat at his desk, going over a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls that he had... acquired recently. Once Shinji had left, he and Iris had relocated to the pseudo-Sub Dome he had set up in the Chinese mountains, where the majority of the Slinn-Klyyd members of his renegade group lived unless he had something for them to do. Some humans too, if they wanted to. It also happened to be the place where Shinji had, collectively, spent most of his life.

The more he read of the scrolls, the more pissed off he got. He had been aware of most of the idea behind this whole mess, you didn't send your own son in if you didn't, but to have it all laid out like this... and it was a _prophecy_. He hated prophecies. A familiar presence drew near, and he looked up to see the door open. Ridley Weatherford, probably his best human friend, walked in, and smirked at him.

"Seems like you're in a mood, Nick," he said. Nichos promptly telekinetically flicked him in the head.

"Don't call me that," he told the other man, who was rubbing his forehead, and still smiling, Yiisea curse him. He sighed and sent a half-hearted glare at the paper. Ridley seemed to catch on that his mood was really not in a good place.

"What's wrong, Nichos?" he asked.

"It's these stupid fucking Dead Sea Scrolls," Nichos said tiredly. "It confirms everything we suspected, and it's a prophecy. Seele is doing all of this based on a fucking prophecy."

"What's wrong with it being a prophecy?" Ridley asked, clearly confused by his friend's attitude.

"Everything," he said with another sigh. "Ignoring unique abilities like mine and Iris's, Futuresight is the rarest psychic ability by a few dozen lightyears. If one in every million human has psychic powers, then it's one in every billion pychics that has Futuresight. And going by the handwriting here, these scrolls were written by at least a dozen humans. That. Doesn't. Happen."

"Too big a coincidence?" his friend asked, skeptical.

"This is a coincidence like a Mack Truck coincides with a gas station, driven by a suicide bomber," he said, propping up his head on his hand. "It happened on purpose, and there's a massive aftermath."

"That's not all, though."

"No, it's not. For all it's rarity, Futuresight isn't even that reliable. Prophecies aren't ordained by fate to take place, they're just a snapshot of what _could_ happen. Free will exists, Ridley, and it messes with prophecies every day. This one has thousands of years of the Butterfly Effect behind it, but a lot of it has already come to pass. Obviously, some of it's Seele brute forcing things according to their agenda, but nobody had even found the things until the mid 20th. Of more concern is one glaring exception to the Scrolls."

"What's that?"

"Us. More specifically, I mean the Dragons. There isn't a single indication of aliens living on Earth, or possibly interfering with the conflict between Humans and Angels, like we're doing _right now_. Ironically, that's not too surprising, really."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean no one anywhere saw the destruction a Slinn-Klyyd coming. As far as we know, no one in the universe made a prophecy regarding a supernova destroying the capital of a _galaxy spanning empire_. It seems to have come entirely out of left field."

"So no one, including these Dead Sea Scroll prophets, foresaw them needing to relocate to Earth."

"Exactly."

"So, what does that mean for us?"

"I don't know," Nichos said with yet another sigh, leaning back into his chair. "There's plenty of advantages to not being in the Scrolls, foremost being preserving our secrecy, but if we were in them, I'd at least have a better idea of how to keep things from playing out like Seele or Gendo want."

"I think I can see why you don't like prophecies now, mate," Ridley said sympathetically.

"Yeah," he said. He put the Scrolls away in his desk and stood up, stretching. "I know all of this, and look out and see Seele and Gendo blindly following what millenia old scratchings on lambskin, and it just infuriates and depresses me."

"Hey, now," Ridley said with a smile. "The Nichos Ramaiden I know doesn't get depressed."

"Yeah, yeah," Nichos waved his friend off. "Now beat it, why don't you? I'm gonna go kill something." With that, he stood up and strode out of his office. The was a pasture in the south-west portion of the Dome, manned by an older Corocanji named Garakek. Apparently the old guy had a talent for raising cattle. Who'd a thunk it? The pasture was there to allow people to indulge in certain predatory instincts, as most Dragons preferred to eat something they had killed themselves. Unsurprisingly, most humans stayed away.

"Hello, sir," Garakek greeted him, once he arrived at the pasture.

"Sup, Kek?" he said distractedly, already trying to decide which cow he wanted. It didn't really matter, he supposed, but still.

"How's Iris, sir?" the Corocanji asked. Maybe that one would be good...? His claws extended to full length.

"She's in France," he said, and he could hear the annoyance in his own voice. They had gotten word of a potential Seele member living in Paris and Iris had gone to investigate. For now, Seele had to stay intact so that they could make sure that Nerv had all the funding it needed. Once all was said and done, though, he would take immense satisfaction in tasting each and every one of the bastards' blood.

With a snarl, he leaped at one of the steer, slashing its head off. Before the first spurt of blood from the open neck, he thrust his other hand through the skull. He knew for a fact that brain activity continued after decapitation, and even in his bad mood, he saw no point in letting the poor thing suffer needlessly.

"Feeling better, sir?" Garakek deadpanned, as he pulled cow's head from his arm.

"Mmm, grumble, grumble..." Nichos muttered at him. He didn't feel any better, but in his book, there was always time for a joke only five people in a 3 kilometer radius would get. He picked up the carcass, having decided to take it to the kitchen. Maybe a steak or twelve would lift his spirits a bit.

**ED**

Ikari Shinji was not a happy person at the moment. There were several reasons for this. He had been sitting in Unit-01 for the past four hours. He was breathing a liquid that tasted like blood, again. He was wearing some blue rubber... thing that chaffed horribly. Most of all, though, was that fact that he hadn't actually _done anything_ in the last four hours. They had just tossed him into the Eva and made him sit there while they did tests.

"I thought you said I'd get to learn about the weapons this thing has or something," he complained. If he'd known this was what he'd been in for, he would have gladly had Riiskare keep blasting him with lightning. As he'd found out earlier, most of the readouts, displays and communication windows were holographic(He'd been surprised by that, as that was exactly how the Dragons did things). He idly flicked his finger at one, and passed right through.

"I told you before, Shinji-kun," Dr. Akagi said, looking up from her readouts to speak to him. "There are a lot of things we need to determine to make sure you can pilot an Eva safely and effectively." The massive machine was some great big white room. There was enough space to move around in, but the first thing they had told him was to hold still.

"But I can obviously move the damn thing," he countered, intertwining his fingers and cracking them for effect(that the Eva had fingers you could crack was both amazing and a little horrifying).

"We also need to make sure that you can maintain an AT-Field, that your Harmonics stay in line, that your synchronization doesn't fluctuate, that the Eva won't spontaneously start bashing its head into the wall..." she retorted. "And please, stop moving." He crossed his arms and sulked.

"You'd think as the pilot I'd actually get to pilot..." he muttered under his breath.

"Just bear with us while we make sure piloting won't drive you insane, Shinji-kun," the doctor said dryly. Shit.

"...How good are the audio pickups in this thing?" he asked, refusing to acknowledge what he said.

"We can hear your heartbeat," she responded.

"...Wonderful."

"We're almost done, Shinji-kun," Maya interjected. "Just wait a little longer." And so he waited. Eventually, they had him move the Eva back to the Cages, where they would plug it into a virtual reality machine used for training purposes, run by the MAGI supercomputers. Once he was plugged back in, the light show ended in an amazing sight. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear he was looking at Tokyo-3.

"This is incredible," he said. He moved his arm. "I really can't tell the difference." A communications window opened, displaying Misato.

"Glad you like it, Shinji-kun!" she said cheerfully.

"Glad you could finally join us, Misato-san," he replied dryly.

"What, you wanted me to watch you sit in a chair for four hours?" she asked rhetorically. "Sorry, but I had paperwork to catch up on." He grinned.

"You mean paperwork from two days ago?" he asked.

"Have you ever had to fill out paperwork?" she retorted. "I'm still not done with it."

"Right," he said doubtfully. "And what will your excuse be next week?"

"My excuse will that I was too busy taking care of you and your mysteriously broken legs."

"IF I could interrupt you two," Dr. Akagi said loudly. Spoilsport. "We're ready to begin."

"Great," Shinji said, eager to finally _do_ something. "So, how does this work?"

"First, we're going to establish familiarity with all the weapons we have currently available. There are others still being developed, but we'll focus on those later."

"All right, so what, do I just hold out my hand and a gun appears in it?" he asked, unsure of where Eva scale weapons would be stored. Presumably, they would send him up with one in a real fight, but he was already topside...

"Nope, we're also going to teach you how to retrieve weapons in the field," she told him. "Access the map function in your control panel." Looking at the various holographic displays, he saw one that had a big "Functions" label, and he passed a finger through it. The display shifted to a new menu, one option was "Map". It was kind of eerie how similar this was to Draconic interactive technology. He pressed it and the display shifted again, this time to a map. "What you're seeing is a real-time map of the city. That orange spot is you. If there were an Angel, it would be displayed as a blue spot."

"Just in case I can't see it right in front of me, right Doctor?" he said, unable to resist teasing the stoic woman.

"It's your fault, then, if one shows up and it's invisible," she retorted flawlessly. Oh, she was good. "If I could continue?" He nodded his head. "Good. I will highlight one of the buildings on your map. Please move to it." A square on the map, about two blocks away, started to glow yellow. He approached it at a light jog, coming to a stop in front of it. There didn't seem to be any thing different about this building... Suddenly, it split open.

"Whoa!" he cried, leaping back from it(Jeez, still so delayed). As he watched the building unfold, he noticed something inside. "Are those pistols?"

"There are several buildings in the city that have been purpose-built to aid you in fighting the Angels," Dr. Akagi lectured. "There are armory buildings like this one, fortified structures for cover, storage buildings for umbilical cables, you name it. Your first homework assignment is to memorize each one's location. For now, please pick up a gun." There were four guns in the building, so he just picked one at random. A quick inspection revealed that it wasn't loaded, indeed, there wasn't a magazine. "You've been trained to handle guns?"

"To the point where my dad lays me flat every time I mishandle one," he answered, looking back into the armory building to find several magazines. "I know this virtual reality or whatever, but I can't shake the feeling that if I don't exercise proper gun safety, he'll appear out of nowhere to take it away and punch me in the head."

"You do know that that's kinda messed up, Shinji-kun." Misato said, giving him a weird look. He shrugged.

"Well, it's not like that's how he taught me," he said, looking around for something to shoot. "It's a punishment for mishandling now that I know how to use a gun properly." He paused. "So, do I shoot anything, or what?" Dr. Akagi nodded to Maya.

"Queue up some targets for him, Maya-chan," she said.

"Yes, sempai," the younger woman responded, tapping away at her keyboard. For some reason he almost laughed, on one end of this connection, all through the MAGI, he had a holo-interface inside the most advanced war machine humanity had, and the people managing it still had keyboards. The dissonance was just funny. In the simulation, four targets appeared in various parts of the city, at various distances. "To start off, fire three shots at each target, Shinji-kun."

"Just one thing, though," he said, holding up a finger. "This gun doesn't have any sights." It was true, the top of the barrel was completely smooth. "Am I supposed to shoot from the hip?"

"Just load the gun and take aim, Shinji-kun," Maya told him, an odd smile on her face. What did she know...? He shrugged, grabbed a magazine, slid it in, took off the safety, and adopted a firing stance, aiming at the nearest target. To his surprise, a triangle appeared in the center of "his" vision, with a cross-hair inside of it.

"What the..." he muttered.

"The weapons used by an Evangelion wirelessly link up with the computer in the Eva and display a targeting reticule on the screen," Maya explained. "A targeting computer identifies how far away your target is and adjusts the placement of the reticule. You then just line up the cross-hair in the center, and pull the switch."

"Pull the switch, huh?" he said to himself. That was almost exactly how Draconic guns worked, he was starting to get a little weirded out how similar Nerv's tech was to the Dragons. Hell, that was one of the primary functions of Riiskare's bionic eye. Looking back at the screen, the cross-hair was centered on the target he was pointing at. "Here we go..." He quickly fired three shots at the target, and shifted his aim to each one, quickly shooting the three rounds.

Once he was done, he pointed the gun at the ground. "How was that?" he asked cheerfully. For a long moment everyone just stared at him.

"Shinji-kun?" Misato finally asked.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"You said your dad taught you to shoot?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"What does he do for a living?"

"Actually, he was in special forces until he and Mom adopted me," he told her. Well, that was _almost_ not a blatant lie... "He stays at home mostly, now."

"Well, that explains a thing or two..." she muttered to herself. She looked at him. "I think you won't need any additional training with the pistol. How about you, Ritsu-chan?"

"I would tend to agree," the doctor nodded. "Return the weapon to it's place, please, Shinji-kun. We'll move on to the next type now." And so it went for the rest of the afternoon: They would have him demonstrate his ability with the weapons they had, an assault rifle analogue, some beastly rocket launcher thing, a low-grade(by his standards) positron rifle, and he would surprise them with his skill with each. He had had to convince them more than once that his father hadn't been teaching him how to use weapons that were illegal for civilians to have(an incredible fabrication). Reportedly, there were still weapons being developed that they would include in the simulation once they were finished.

"That wouldn't happen to include a progressive katana, would it?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from sounding too hopeful. He hated to be stereotypical, but when Riiskare had had him choose a personal close combat weapon, it had to be the classic samurai sword(that was, in his opinion, what you got for asking an eight year old a question like that). His own had yet to be sent to the apartment.

"I'm afraid not, Shinji-kun," Dr. Akagi told him, sounding amused. "When scaling up weapons like this, there are material stresses to consider. There aren't any building materials that could make up a long, single, vibrating blade. Nerv-Germany is making a progressive spear and axe, though."

"Spear and axe?" he asked incredulously. "Who am I, Conan the Barbarian?"

"They were specifically requested by the Second Child, I'm given to understand," she responded, clearly enjoying catching him off-guard.

"Hoo, boy," he said, exhaling forcefully. He had heard _stories_ about the Second Child. This bit of information didn't help to disprove any. "Are we done, then?"

"Not, yet, Shinji-kun," she said. "We know that you can stand still and hit a target, but we still need to appraise your actual combat abilities. Maya-chan has been developing training scenarios based on the data we have, and you're going to go through a few."

"Cool," he replied. That actually sounded fun. "How will that work?"

"I'll have you restart the simulator as if you were just about to be deployed from the Cage, Shinji-kun," Maya said. "You'll deploy to the surface and engage the enemy according to standard procedures. For these first few training programs, we won't be providing any support, so it'll be all you."

"What will I be fighting?"

"For the first scenario, you'll fight a reproduction of the Third Angel. After that, well..." She smiled at him again. Great, she had something_ planned_, he knew it. "That would be telling."

"Alright, boot it up," he said. Everything went dark for a moment, then he was back in the Cages. He accessed his map, and saw that the fake Sachiel was a good three kilometers away from his exit point. Hmm, that left some options on how to deal with it...

"You ready, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked him. He nodded, having decided how to kill it. "Then, launch!" He shot up the launch catapult, and emerged on the outskirts of the city. He checked that the Angel was where it was supposed to be, then ran for the pistol building. Even if it was just a facsimile, he still wanted to pay it back for nearly perforating his head. He'd show everyone just how pathetic Sachiel was, now that he had a feel for how the Eva worked. He quickly retrieved his gun, and stood and faced the Angel.

"Hey, dumbass!" he called, ignoring that it couldn't hear him. Nevertheless, it turned to face him, and he stifled a laugh at how life-like the simulation was. Just like the original, there was no psychic presence to the monster, though for entirely different reasons. His AT-Field was unfolded, and it should have neutralized his enemy's already. He rushed the Angel, firing into its body as he ran. Just as he'd hoped, the bullets ripping into its flesh kept it from using its beam weapon on him.

The Eva's long strides quickly carried him to Sachiel, and he didn't stop, body checking the slow-to-respond Angel to the ground. Before it could move, he emptied the rest of the clip into its core and, for good measure, stomped his foot into it. "Ha!" he crowed. Quick and decisive. Very satisfying. "Nothing to it!" Once again, there was silence, and he noticed that everyone was staring at him again. "Oh, come on, people. Are you really surprised by now?" Dr. Akagi shook her head, pulling herself from her apparent trance.

"It seems that you're full of surprises, Shinji-kun," she said. "But really, can you fault us for being surprised that someone your age is so good at combat?"

"I would have thought that the other night and today would have given you some warning," he said airily. He grinned. "I'm feeling charged, give me the next simulation."

"I'll just insert your next enemy into the existing setup, Shinji-kun," Maya told him. "You won't have to redeploy or anything. I hope you have fun!" Immediately, he noticed that the section of Tokyo-3 that he was in was... darker. He turned around, then had to look up, and up, and...up.

"Is that Godzilla?" he asked faintly.

"Yep!" Maya affirmed cheerfully.

"Oh, boy..."

**ED**

Sachiel might have been a pushover, but I imagine that good ol nuke-breath will be a bit more of a challenge for Shinji, huh? Well, that's the first part of Chapter Two done, then. Next time will feature Shinji's first meeting with Rei, as well as School, and all that that entails. I'd love to hear what you all think of things so far, so please leave a review. On that note, I'm just going to put out that I would like a beta reader, so any interested parties can feel free to email me about that. I think that's it, so until next time.


End file.
